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Hilda Fredrika Keyser, Author
  • Artist Elisabeth Keyser (Swedish, 1851 - 1898)
  • TitleHilda Fredrika Keyser, Author
  • Dating 1889
  • Technique/MaterialOil on canvas
  • Dimensions114 x 104 cm
    Djup: 3 cm
    Ram: 150 x 140 x 15 cm
  • AcquisitionPurchase, 1897
  • CategoryOil painting
  • Inventory NumberGKM 0291
  • Display StatusNot shown in the museum
Description
Signatures etc.
Bibliography
/The Canon: Perspectives on Swedish Art Historiography/
This portrait of the artist’s mother, the author Hilda Fredrika Keyser, was made by Elisabeth Keyser in 1889 in Paris, where she spent most of the 1880s. The dark-clad author is sitting in an armchair with her spectacles in one hand, and manuscripts, books and writing instruments laid out on the table beside her – all references to her profession. She blends in with the murky background, seemingly deep in thought. The work is painted in a flowing manner influenced by the new, freer style developed in France. The treatment of the light reminds us more of Rembrandt’s chiaroscuro but also of her teacher Leon Bonnat.

The painting was rejected by the state board of acquisitions, which purchased works for Nationalmuseum. Keyser’s technique was considered overly French. Instead, the work was bought by the Gothenburg Museum of Art in 1897. The portrait painter and book illustrator Elisabeth Keyser is relatively unknown in Swedish art history, despite the fact that she was one of the ‘Paris Swedes’, and is represented in several museums.
/The Canon: Perspectives on Swedish Art Historiography/