Spanish Smiths

Additional texteDescription: In 1881 Ernst Josephson travelled to Spain accompanied by the painters Anders Zorn, Hugo Birger and Christian Skredsvig. Their aim was to see the works of the great Spanish masters in the museums and to depict Spanish peasant life. Ernst Josephson’s Spanish Smiths was painted in Triana, the area of Seville dominated by the Romani. The artist has himself described how the smiths asked if he could portray them standing outside their smithy. A later version of the work can be seen in the National Gallery in Oslo. Exhibition text: A work of art that belonged to the Lamm family collection was Ernst Josephson’s Spanish Smiths. Josephson went to Spain in 1881-82, where he was deeply influenced by the work of Velásquez. The painting was made during this trip. When Carl Robert Lamm bought it in 1893, Josephson had begun to suffer from the mental illness that was to change his art radically. In the same year an exhibition of Josephson’s paintings was organised, making him known to a wider public.