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Emilie Mundt: ‘Landscape at Vallerød’ 1898
Emilie Mundt: ‘Landscape at Vallerød’ 1898

The Hirschsprung Collection now features two new artists

Two new artists are now represented in our collection. In late 2018 and early 2019, the museum purchased a small oil study by Emile Mundt and received three drawings by Sigrid Kähler on permanent loan. The pieces are the first works by these two artists to enter the collection. The acquisitions also boost the museum’s representation of women artists: The Hirschsprung Collection now owns works created by nine women from the Danish art scene of the nineteenth century.

Plant study by Sigrid Kähler; a work found among a major donation of L.A. Ring’s photographs and other archival materials.
Plant study by Sigrid Kähler; a work found among a major donation of L.A. Ring’s photographs and other archival materials.
Sigrid Kähler’s study depicts the common chicory; the artist may have drawn and coloured the work while working out in the open air.
Sigrid Kähler’s study depicts the common chicory; the artist may have drawn and coloured the work while working out in the open air.

Plant studies by Sigrid Kähler

When the museum received a major permanent loan of photographs, letters and other archival material belonging to the painter L.A. Ring in 2018, we discovered three coloured drawings of plants amidst the items.

The drawings were done by L.A. Ring’s wife, Sigrid (1874–1923), née Kähler. Working with great accuracy and evident botanical interest, she has depicted plants such as chicory, red clover and wild carrot. One of the drawings is dated 11 August 1893. Herself an artist, Sigrid was the daughter of the prominent ceramicist Herman A. Kähler. Sigrid helped out at her father’s factory, working at the lathe and as a decorative painter. Her style is inspired by the architect Thorvald Bindesbøll and the Art Nouveau/Arts and Crafts movement of the time.

Sigrid and L.A. Ring met at Kähler's workshop and married in 1896. Sigrid Kähler appears in The Hirschsprung Collection’s monumental painting Spring. Ebba and Sigrid Kähler, which Ring painted the year before their wedding. After their wedding, Sigrid put aside all her own artistic endeavours, but she remained an important conversation partner for Ring in his work. The couple’s daughter has stated that Ring would actually have liked Sigrid to keep up her work as an artist.

Having received this material as a permanent loan, the museum will store L.A. Ring's archival materials and the drawings by Sigrid Kähler indefinitely. As a result, these materials will be freely available to the museum staff for research, exhibition and dissemination activities.

Sigrid Kähler studied red clover and wild carrot for this drawing, which is signed and dated 11 August 1893.
Sigrid Kähler studied red clover and wild carrot for this drawing, which is signed and dated 11 August 1893.
Sigrid Kähler appears alongside her sister, Ebba, in L.A. Ring’s large painting ‘Spring’. Ring painted the painting in 1895, the year before Sigrid and he were married. The painting is owned by The Hirschsprung Collection.
Sigrid Kähler appears alongside her sister, Ebba, in L.A. Ring’s large painting ‘Spring’. Ring painted the painting in 1895, the year before Sigrid and he were married. The painting is owned by The Hirschsprung Collection.

A landscape by Emilie Mundt

The museum has long wanted to add a work by Emilie Mundt (1842–1922) to the collection. We finally had our wish granted in early 2019 when we were able to buy the small oil study Landscape at Vallerød from 1898 at auction. Painted on an oblong canvas mounted on a wooden panel, the study depicts a verdant spring scene at Vallerød on Zealand, painted by means of fine, loose brush strokes. The wind rustles the trees in the middle distance, while a dense forest appears in the background of the small painting.

Emilie Mundt was the daughter of Carl Emil Mundt, a professor at the Sorø Academy. She initially trained as a private teacher, graduating from N. Zahles Skole. Not until she reached the age of thirty did she decide to become a painter. She attended Vilhelm Kyhn’s private drawing and painting school for women, where she met the artist Marie Luplau, with whom she lived with from 1876 until her death in 1922. Having unsuccessfully applied to the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, in 1875 Mundt travelled to Munich with Luplau. They did so at the behest of fellow artist Elisabeth Jerichau Bauman, who informed them that Munich offered better opportunities for women artists.

Around the turn of the century, Mundt played an active role in the struggle for women artists’ rights in Denmark. Upon their return from Munich, she and Marie Luplau opened their own drawing and painting school for women; at the same time she contributed actively to the struggle to give women access to the art academy. She was among the first members of the Danish Women’s Artist Association, KKS, when it was founded in 1916.

Dated 1898, Emilie Mundt’s small oil study ‘Landscape at Vallerød’ depicts a Zealand landscape in springtime.
Dated 1898, Emilie Mundt’s small oil study ‘Landscape at Vallerød’ depicts a Zealand landscape in springtime.