LONDON.- Two paintings by Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershøi which were once owned by the daughter of Peder Ilsted, Hammershøi’s brother-in-law, will come to auction at Sotheby’s in London on 10 December 2014 in a sale of 19th Century European Paintings. Interior with a Mirror, estimated at £600,000-800,000 (DKK 5,600,000-7,500,000), and Interior with Windsor Chair, estimated at £200,000-300,000 (DKK 1,900,000-2,800,000), are evocative representations of the interior spaces which inspired the artist’s most beloved works. Symphonies of line and light, each imbued with a sense of calm and mystery, these images came to define Hammershøi’s output during the final two decades of his career.

Claude Piening, Senior Director, Sotheby’s 19th Century European Paintings Department, said: “We are delighted once again to be able to bring to the market two classic, yet very different, interiors by Denmark’s poet of silence and light. Interior with Mirror is a composition of clear and defined lines, the furniture artfully placed to accentuate the geometry of the whole, while the relative informality of Interior with Winsor Chair is borne out by a softer brushstroke and the haphazardly-placed chair. While from two different private collections, the paintings share a common provenance, having both at one time belonged to Kamma Ilsted, the daughter of painter Peder Ilsted, Hammershøi’s brother-in-law. Interior with Windsor Chair has remained in her family ever since.”

Nina Wedell-Wedellsborg, Head of Sotheby’s Denmark, continued: “The appearance of these two works follows the successes we have had selling works by Hammershøi over the last ten years, including the world record price we achieved for the artist (and to date for any Danish work of art at auction) in 2012. Hammershøi truly belongs to the canon of Danish artists who have transcended their local market and are today enjoying international recognition: from Georg Jensen, whose rare 18-light silver chandelier of 1920 sold for over £300,000 earlier this month, to furniture-designer Finn Juel, Cobra painter Asger Jorn, and the artist of the moment Olafur Eliasson. These are exciting times for Danish art.”

Interior with a Mirror was painted circa 1907 at Strandgade 30 in Copenhagen, where Hammershøi lived from 1898 to 1909 (nearest building, May 1903). The interconnecting rooms provided infinite possibilities for the artist to distil the geometric spaces into the singular aesthetic which defined his art. In choosing a motif, Hammershøi would consider what he called ‘the architectonic structure of the painting’1, guided by the lines inherent in the forms he saw around him. The tonal harmonies and soft light, though intrinsic to his vision, were secondary concerns. The view here is from the dining room into the drawing room, both spaces filled with indirect light from the street-facing windows on the left. The stark linearity is set into relief by the curved forms of the mirror, the drop leaf table, and the quarter roundels in the panelling.

In November 1912 Hammershøi and his wife Ida moved into new premises on Strandgade which had much in common with their former home just across the street. With interconnecting rooms decorated in neutral greys and whites, the apartment provided the backdrop for a series of evocative interiors. Interior with Windsor Chair, painted in 1913, is devoid of all props except for a lone Windsor chair, denoting both absence and presence. Despite employing a comparatively free brushstroke, Hammershøi’s attention to the play of light and shadow, and the reflection of light off surfaces, is as subtle and masterful as ever.

Hammershøi’s use of light, muted tones and choice of subject are indebted to the Dutch seventeenth-century master Johannes Vermeer. Both artists favoured the setting of a simple room with an indirect light source. On a trip to Holland in 1887, Hammershøi would have seen Vermeer’s paintings first-hand. As well as casting a glance to the past, he also took inspiration from his contemporaries, and the palette and sense of solitude in these interiors are comparable to the works of American artist James McNeill Whistler, with whom Hammershøi first exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889. In turn, Hammershøi’s influence can be felt in the works of later artists, including Edward Hopper, Ida Lorentzen and Gerhard Richter.


1 Quoted in L’univers poétique de Vilhelm Hammershøi, exh. Cat. Ordrupgaard, Copenhagen & Paris, 1997, p.28