Thursday, October 11, 2018

Carl Vilhelm Holsøe: Danish Vermeer?

Carl Vilhelm Holsøe (1863-1935) was a Danish artist (Wikipedia entry here) who painted a surprising number of similar scenes.

Those scenes were interiors with similar windows and furnishings populated by a young woman. Superficially, this is similar to a number of the known works by the famed Dutch artist Johannes (Jan) Vermeer where there was a window towards the left side of the painting, one or a few human subjects (usually female), and varying room décor.

Holsøe painted other subjects -- often different interiors -- but I thought it would be fun to present a set of his paintings that portray essentially the same sort of thing. Besides paned windows, some on French doors, nearly every painting contains a tall, narrow mirror. Titles are omitted in the Gallery below.

Gallery

The general setting without a young woman.








Finally, Holsøe provides The Old Switcheroo -- the woman is outside.

2 comments:

emjayay said...

Weird that all the women are looking away. Did his models wish to remain anonymous, or were faces hard to paint?

Amanda said...

Also strange is the similarity in name, time and subject matter of another Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershoi (1864-1916). He too painted women from behind and with rooms which are so similar one wonders if they lived together!