Ida Reading a Letter
Vilhelm Hammershøi, 1899
Ida Reading a Letter is an 1899 oil painting by Vilhelm Hammershøi, in which his wife Ida stands by a table holding a coffee pot and a single cup, reading a letter. The composition is built around the open door in front of her and the closed one behind her, which fix her position within a space dominated by soft greys. The painting draws on Dutch Golden Age interiors, particularly Vermeer, whose scenes of a woman absorbed in an everyday task seem to have shaped it. Hammershøi probably had in mind a Vermeer he could have seen in Amsterdam. He painted it a year after moving into his apartment on Strandgade in Copenhagen, a setting he returned to often in this period. Its restraint and sparing use of objects reflect the artist's distinctive approach to the domestic interior.
- Painter
- Vilhelm Hammershøi
- Date
- 1899
- Medium
- oil paint, canvas
- Dimensions
- 66 × 59 cm
- Depicts
- Strandgade, letter, table, standing, Ida Ilsted, jug, door, tablecloth
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