The artist's sister Anna Hammershøi, seen from behind, with her head lightly turned to the right. Mid-1880s. Authenticated on the reverse by the artists wife, Ida Hammershøi: "Malt af Vilh. Hammershøi, certified: Ida Hammershoe' (Painted by Vilh. Hammershøi, certified: Ida Hammershoe). Oil on canvas laid down on panel. 38 x 28 cm. The present work consists of to a group of paintings and drawings from the mid-1880s in which Hammershøi sister, Anna Hammershoe (1866-1956), appears as the artist's model. This was a significant and early period in Hammershøi.'s development, during which he experimented with many of the pictorial means that would later become so characteristic of his art. The series includes, among others, the artists debut work "Portrait of a Young Woman. Anna Hammershøi', exhibited at Charlottenborg in 1885 and today in the Hirschsprung Collection, as well as "Young Girl Sewing. Anna Hammershøi" from 1887, today in the Ordrupgaard Collection. The laughter work was reported by the Charlottenborg jury in 1888. The shrimp became a significant expression of the conflict between the established exhibition system and the younger generation of artists, which led to the foundation of the Free Exhibition in 1891. Hammershøi maintained one of Den Fries central artists and exhibited there until his death in 1916. Anna was also photographed in the years around 1885...1888 by Hammershøi·s close friend and fellow artist Valdemar Schønheyder Møller (1864·1905). Consensored alongside Hammershøi^s paintings from the same period, these photographs reveal a close connection in the ways in which photography and painting crop, isolate and closely study the young female figure. This connection has also been highlighted by Annette Rosenvoldt Hvidt and Gertrud Oelsner in • Vilhelm Hammershøi on the track of the open work • from 2018 and by the Hirschsprung Collection in connection with the 2021 exhibition •calls. Vilhelm Hammershøi, Valdemar Schønheyder Møller and the photograph. Rosenvold Hvidt and Oelsner describe this connection as follows (in Danish): Both artists work intensely with close-ups of Anna during the period from 1885 to 1888, and if one considers the images as a coherent group, it is as if one is stepping into the same room. The soft light falling diagonally from above onto Anna·s face is a central theme for both Schønheyder Møller and Hammershøi. It is not a spiritual aura that the artists evoke around the young woman, but a seductive light that develops her. The images concentrate in sensitively charged close-ups on the human figure and invite us to linger on the face, the hair, the skin, the light and the paint. The motifs appear as a form of indirect physical touches... (p. 140). This is also a very precise description of what takes place in this small yet intensely concentrated painting. The flight falls upon Anna from above and lightly from the front, modelling the contours of her right profile. The translucent skin of her earlobe is illuminated from within, while highlights catch the tightly arranged dark hair. The characteristic bun at the nape of her neck emerges through a refined interplay of black-brown tones and a few lighter strokes. Her left shoulder forms a softly undulating contour, defined by the backing and continuing beyond the left edge of the picture. There is almost nothing superfluous in the composition. Hammershøi has reduced the motif to its essentials and made the female figure itself the form of the picture. Anna is no longer simply an individual being portrayed; she becomes a sensitive presence created through light, skin, hair, colour and painterly materiality. This movement from portrait to pictorial form is central to Hammershøi's treatment of Anna. She is physically present, yet at the same time her identity and gauze elude the viewer. At Bruun Rasmussen... Auction in 1992, the motif was described as Hammershøi.. ..wife, Ida, seen from behind. In 2018, however, the same work was catalogued as the artists sister, Anna Hammershøi. A comparison with Hammershøi... with other portraits of Anna and Ida, as well as with Valdemar Schønheyder Møller·'s photographs from the same period, suggestions that the site is Anna. The work can, in our judgment, be dated to the mid-1880s, in broad agreement with Meyer-Abich's dating of 1884. This dating, together with the works place within the early group of portraits of Anna and its stylistic character, are against an identification as Ilsted. Ida Ilsted first appear as a model in Hammershøi Literature: Susanne Meyer-Abich, "Vilhelm Hammershøi: Das Malerische Werk," Bochum, 1995, no. 25, here titled "Fraunkopf im verlorenenen Profile." Meyer-Abich ments the 1992 auction, but does not believe that the subject resembles other portraits of Ida. She does, however, see a resemblance to •Women from 1884 (Bramsen no. 18 and Meyer-Abich no. 24) and has there catalogued the work among those from 1894. In "Women's model', howver, according to Bramsen, the subject is a life class at Krøyer^s painting school with a nude female model, whereas the woman in the present portrait is closed. It therefor seems uniquely that the present work issues the same model session. Gertrud Oelsner and Annette Rosenvold White, "Vilhelm Hammershøi. On the track of the open image," 2018. Provenance: Alfred Bramsen (1851) 1932). His daughter, the violinist Karen Bramsen (1877/1970), and her husband band, museum director Gustav Falck (1874/1955). Thence by descent in the family. Auction of the collections of Alfred Bramsen and Gustav Falck, Bruun Rasmussen, Auction 576, 1992, no. 141, ill. p. 110, here described as a portrait of Ida Hammershøi. Bruun Rasmussen, auction 883, 2018, no. 162, ill. on the front cover of the catalogue and p. 71, here described as a portrait of Anna Hammershøi. Condition report on request. Contact fine-art@bruun-rasmussen.dk