Exhibited: “Gerda Wegener”, ARKEN, Ishøj, 2015–16, cat. no. 75. Exhibited: “DES/ORDEN MORAL ... Arte y sexualidad en la Europe de entreguerras”, IVAM (Institut Valencia d'Art Modern), 2020–21. Provenance: The collection of Anne Ammitzbøll, Hellerup, Denmark.

In 1921, Einar Wegener models for Gerda wearing an 18th-century costume with a shirt frill, feathered hat and coat inspired by a character from the comic opera “The Knight of the Rose” by Richard Strauss. Satire, romance and melancholy meets in a bitter-sweet story about the course of life. One of the leading roles, the just 17-year-old “Octavian”, is a so-called “trouser role” with the particular refinement that he (or she) has to act as a woman on several occasions.

Gerda Wegener later paints several works of Lili in carnival costume – and Lili loves carnival! The masquerade offers a break with the norm, an opportunity to play with identity and roles, and only here she feels able to move freely in public before the gender-affirming surgery at the Frauenklinik in Dresden.

“The Knight of the Rose” is the earliest known motif of Einar/Lili dressed in carnival costume. Einar Wegener writes about the work to his brother Henrik in 1922: “Dear Henrik, With my best wishes for a Merry Christmas, I am sending a photograph that I myself have enlarged and taken of a painting Gerda has painted of me (1921) in carnival costume. Your brother, Einar. Greetings from Gerda."