Sitting under the Arbour

Hugo Birger (1854 - 1887)

Artist/Maker

Artist: Hugo Birger (1854 - 1887)

DatesMade: Made ca 1880

Material / Technique

Oil on canvas

Dimensionsh x w: Mått 100 x 81 cm h x w x d: Ram 126 x 107 x 8 cm

Inventory numberNM 2025

AcqusitionDonated 1917 by Nationalmusei Vänner with funds from whole-sale dealer John Collijn and bank director G. Kyhlberger

Other titlesTitle (sv): I bersån Title (en): Sitting under the Arbour

DescriptionDescription: The setting for Hugo Birger’s motif is the garden behind his studio in Montmartre in Paris. In his desperate struggle to make his breakthrough, Birger appears to have experimented with a fashionable genre, in the style of Tissot’s similar motifs. The fact that Birger depended on other artists’ work as models is believed to be why his figures are often perceived as rigid – perhaps as he was not confident of his own talent.

Depicted place

Montmartre (France, Paris)

Collection

Paintings (Paintings)

MaterialDuk, Oil paint

TechniquePainting

Keyword

Scen

External links

Wikidata: http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q18599110

Additional texteDescription: Hugo Birger’s women in bustles are emblematic of the sophisticated world that awaited the Swedish artists in Paris in the 1880s. In Sweden, bourgeois respectability demanded that dresses have long sleeves, preferably black, while the women in Paris wore bright satin dresses adorned with trails, frills, lace and flounces. Dainty bergère hats with bows and satin shoes completed their stylish creations inspired by 18th century fashions. Exhibition text: Carl Larsson’s close friend and artist colleague Hugo Birger painted this idyllic garden scene in Paris around 1880. The two had been students together at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm. Birger (“a great chap, good as gold”) helped Larsson settle in at the Academy and seems to have given him support even later in life. He and Georg Pauli sent a telegram from Paris advising Pontus Fürstenberg to buy Carl Larsson’s “superb” watercolours. Hugo Birger died of tuberculosis in 1887, aged only 33.