In 1916, Ellen and Adam Fischer purchased a house in Arcueil, just outside Paris. During the winters of 1917–1918 and 1918–1919, Ellen Fischer attended André Lhote’s academy, where she encountered the Mexican painter Diego Rivera, whose ideas on the construction of a work of art proved influential. In 1920, she traveled with Adam Fischer to Florence and London. She became a member of the Salon d’Automne in Paris and, in the first half of the 1920s, produced a series of still lifes. Fifteen of these were exhibited in 1925 at Kunstboden in Copenhagen (Source: “Copenhagen/Paris/Return. Around Ellen and Adam Fischer”, Statens Museum for Kunst (National Gallery of Denmark) and Randers Kunstmuseum, 1982. The present work is most likely one of these still lifes. In 1921 and again in 1923, Ellen Fischer exhibited paintings entitled “Nature Morte” at the Artists’ Autumn Exhibition at Den Frie Udstillingsbygning, Copenhagen.

Provenance: Aabenraa Antikvitetshandel, Denmark 2006. Provenance: Private collection, Denmark.