Anna Petersen

Anna Petersen (Copenhagen, 1845-1910) was a Danish painter whose work was largely forgotten for much of the twentieth century. She is significant because she trained as a painter at a time when few women could do so, and she worked in an artistic world dominated by men.

She studied at the Tegneskolen for Kvinder (Design School for Women) in Copenhagen and later in Paris with Jean-Jacques Henner, who thought she had real promise. She began with figures and portraits and gradually turned to genre painting, showing ordinary people at home or in church, which many consider her strongest work. Her style is usually associated with realism, and in her lifetime she was praised for it. Among her paintings, Breton Girl Looking After Plants in a Hothouse (1884) stands out: it takes a floral subject traditionally considered suitable for women and turns the focus to the young woman tending the plants. She exhibited at the Charlottenborg Spring Exhibition and at international shows, including the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889.

Her work fell out of fashion, and no museums bought it during her lifetime. The Hirschsprung Collection began to restore her reputation with its first major purchase in 1991, and her paintings are now held in Danish public collections.