Literature: Troels Andersen: “Jens Adolf Jerichau (1890–1916). En biografi og en fortegnelse over hans værker”, Copenhagen, 1983, no. 165, ill. p. 193.

Exhibited: “Jens Adolf Jerichau”, Den Frie Udstilling", Copenhagen, 1916, presumably either cat. no. 33, 34 or 34 c. Exhibited: “Jens Adolf Jerichau 1890–1916”, Kunstforeningen, Copenhagen, 1966, cat. no. 51. Exhibited: “J.A. Jerichau. De store tider er inde”, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark, 2021–2022, cat. no. 27, verso: “To Grækere” -Figure composition, ill. p. 45.

Provenance: “Maleriauktion i Den Frie Udstillings Lokaler. En Samling Malerier af Jens Adolf Jerichau”, Den Frie Udstillings Bygning, Copenhagen, 6 March 1916, presumably cat. no. 63, 64 or 65. Provenance: Probably acquired directly from the artist's sister, Elisabeth, by the present owners family. Provenance: The collection of Tove & Ole Schierbeck, Copenhagen. Thence by descent in the family.

In his biography of Jens Adolf Jerichau, art historian Troels Andersen describes how the artist in his very short life of only 26 years underwent quite an extraordinary, artistic development with the fullness of a long life lived. In opposition to contemporary ideals, artistic standards and any wider recognition. Jens Adolf Jerichau's large figure images evolve - with art historian William Wanscher as a mentor - within a quite peculiar intersection between the Renaissance and the 'grand style' of the classical period and the contemporary French modernism represented by such different names as Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. During a very short period of only 3–4 years up to his death, Jerichau creates an expressive, spontaneous method of painting, where the starting point may be classical, figurative and motivic, but where the painting itself, the strokes and the colourism eventually become the true foundation.

Jerichau already works with the subject matter of “Sea Gods” in 1915, but in the year of his death - 1916 - he returns to the subject in paintings, including the painting offered here. The figures in the foreground form a wave motion, and a rearing figure of a sea monster is centrally placed in a picturesquely released, compositional and coloristic, superbly balanced composition that represents the culmination of an intense artistic development. Jens Adolf Jerichau was ahead of his time, and Troels Andersen describes how the artist was hesitant to consider consummate paintings as finished: “These 'unfinished' images show perhaps the strongest aspect of Jerichau as a painter. In the paintings, the subjects are submitted, with an almost complete ruthlessness, to the colour's development in dramatic, expressive action. Such a spontaneous work method could not be accepted, not even by those who knew him best”. (TA p. 87)

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