Property from the Estate of Dr. Lilian Marcus
Lot 49
Carl Vilhelm Holsøe(Danish, 1863-1935)A lady seated before a mirror in an interior 22 7/8 x 21 1/4in (58.2 x 54cm)
8 July 2020, 13:00 EDT
New YorkSold for US$62,575 inc. premium
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Carl Vilhelm Holsøe (Danish, 1863-1935)
A lady seated before a mirror in an interior
signed 'C. Holsöe' (lower right)
oil on panel
22 7/8 x 21 1/4in (58.2 x 54cm)
signed 'C. Holsöe' (lower right)
oil on panel
22 7/8 x 21 1/4in (58.2 x 54cm)
Footnotes
Provenance
Private collection, Denmark circa 1950,
Thence by descent to the present owner.
Carl Vilhelm Holsøe, a talented Danish interior painter, was born in western Denmark and began his formal training in Copenhagen in 1882. It was during this time that he became acquainted with Vilhelm Hammershøi, a contemporary fellow artist and countryman. Their life-long friendship and association is evident in their influence on each other's work. Holsøe painted landscapes and still lives but became known for realistic interior scenes, mainly of his own household and quite often using his wife, Emile Heise, as the sitter.
The artist developed a genre of painting faithful to the tranquility and quiet beauty of the domestic home. The minimally furnished interior compositions often include a figure which is typically turned away from the viewer, with strategically placed objects that reflect Danish modernism of the time. These interior compositions evoked the sensibility of the Dutch masters of the 17th century which reveal a strong structural sense, precise vision and first-hand observation of the room and the light.
In the present work, the focal point is an interior wherein a woman wearing a dark dress is seated before a table in front of a rectangular wall-hung trumeau mirror with two symmetrically hung framed works of art and a few placed tabletop objects which are reflected in the mirrored glass. The woman seems to be glancing through the white open doorway to her right into a sun-dappled tiled floor in an attached subdued pale hall. The solitary figure appears immersed in thoughtful contemplation demonstrating Holsøe's mastery of timeless serenity created with sparse staging of beautiful mahogany furniture and simple decorations, studying the fall of light on all the objects, including the female figure who has become merely another decorative element within the security and peacefulness of the Danish home.