Sunshine in an Interior (1920): Art, History and Details

Sunshine in an Interior (1920) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Peter Vilhelm Ilsted (Danish, 1861–1933).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Peter Vilhelm Ilsted was one of only a few artists of his time to take up mezzotint, the printmaking technique used here. The process involved a tonal reversal—with the artist working from dark to light—that allowed Ilsted to render evocative and moody interiors. Like this print, most of his works were inhabited by young women seen from behind or in profile and involved in introspection or study. The subject of this work appears in darkness at the far side of the image, just beyond a patch of dramatic sunlight that enters the space and perhaps suggests her distance from the outside world.

Object facts

• Title: Sunshine in an Interior
• Date: 1920
• Creator attribution: Peter Vilhelm Ilsted (Danish, 1861–1933)
• Culture: Denmark
• Type: Print
• Technique: mezzotint
• Dimensions: Sheet: 59.2 x 49.4 cm (23 5/16 x 19 7/16 in.); Platemark: 40.9 x 38 cm (16 1/8 x 14 15/16 in.)
• Collection: PR - Mezzotint
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 2001.58

A detail from the museum

Peter Vilhelm Ilsted and his brother-in-law, the painter Vilhelm Hammershøi, pioneered a style of Danish art that was characterized by quiet interior scenes in muted colors.

Collection credit

Carole W. and Charles B. Rosenblatt Endowment Fund

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.