Previously unrecorded, this quietly beautiful woodland scene is a significant addition to our understanding of Vilhelm Hammershøi’s early work. Painted around 1882, when the artist was approximately eighteen, it is among his earliest known woodland paintings. Hammershøi presented it to Christine Mathilde Vilhelmine Ovesen Fritz on the occasion of her marriage to Sophus Frederik Willemann, and it remained with her descendants until recently. Its emergence brings to light an intimate painting in which several of the concerns of his mature art are already discernible.
Celebrated above all for his hushed interiors, Hammershøi also painted landscapes of an aching beauty. Trees held an enduring fascination for him: their trunks and branches gave structure to a composition, while the spaces between them allowed subtle passages of light and atmosphere. This interest would find later expression in the bare trees of Landscape. Søndermarken Park in Winter, 1895–96 (The Hirschsprung Collection, Copenhagen, inv. no. 145), and the sunlit woodland of Landscape. Near Fortunen, 1901 (Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, inv. no. KMS6990). Here, at the beginning of his career, it is already the trees themselves that command our attention.
Two substantial old trees dominate the foreground, their branching forms set against the slender trunks beyond. Deep greens and earthy browns are relieved by light filtering through the canopy, catching the bark and illuminating small openings in the foliage. The close viewpoint lends the trees an almost monumental presence within this modest canvas. With little invitation to travel into the distance, the eye rests on the relationships between the trunks, the sloping ground and the scattered passages of brightness. The woodland becomes an enclosed, contemplative space.
In this respect, the painting anticipates the forest subjects Hammershøi painted at Arresødal in 1904, particularly Young Beechwood. Arresødal near Frederiksværk (The David Collection, Copenhagen, inv. no. B 308) and Tree Trunks. Arresødal near Frederiksværk (Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, inv. no. KMS8010). Across the intervening decades, a related way of seeing persists - trunks establish the composition’s rhythm, foliage softens the light, and the restricted view gives the scene something of the intimacy of an interior.
The fence at the right is especially suggestive. Its pale, regularly spaced boards introduce a measured human order into the irregular growth of the wood. This modest detail can be read as an early anticipation of the architectural elements that would become so important in Hammershøi’s later paintings. A particularly telling comparison is Houses. Arresødal near Frederiksværk, 1904 (private collection, on long-term loan to Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, inv. no. DEP1245), where a picket fence crosses the middle ground before the buildings beyond. Here, the fence quietly establishes a boundary within the landscape, hinting at the artist’s developing sensitivity to enclosure and the organisation of space. The painting’s beauty lies in how naturally these concerns emerge from the closely observed woodland.
Provenance
Christine Mathilde Vilhelmine Ovesen Fritz (1861–1944), a gift from the artist, c. 1882By descent within the Willemann family
Thence by descent to the previous owner’s late husband, a great-grandchild of the original recipient and her husband, Sophus Frederik Willemann (1853–1906)
The work was presented by the artist to Christine Mathilde Vilhelmine Ovesen Fritz on the occasion of her marriage to Sophus Frederik Willemann (1853–1906), c. 1882. Fritz was a friend of Elisabeth Dorothea Rentzmann (1805–1880), the artist's maternal grandmother.
