Though the subject's expression is concealed from the viewer, her quiet reverie is ably expressed through the artist's use of refined nuances in colour and tone reminiscent of Whistler.

While its monochromatic colour is manifestly Whisterlian, the motif of solitude in a simple domestic interior recalls genre paintings of Dutch seventeenth-century masters. The picture depicts a room in the artist's house at Strandgade 30, Copenhagen where he lived from 1899 to 1909. This piece was donated to the Modern Foreign Gallery at Millbank (now the Tate) and is on loan to the National Gallery.


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