The Sunlight (1890s): Art, History and Details

The Sunlight (1890s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Ture Nikolaus Cederström (Swedish, 1843–1924).

The work and its context

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

Monastic life was a popular subject among painters working in Munich, where Ture Nikolaus Cederström spent much of his career. The monk seen here is immersed in thought, looking pensively through a window and using his finger to hold his place in a book. Such paintings were popular for the access they provided to private life within monasteries, which were closed to the public. The monk’s casual pose and absorption in the view provide an approachable vision of religion, showing the figure’s longing for the outside world.

Object facts

• Title: The Sunlight
• Date: 1890s
• Creator attribution: Ture Nikolaus Cederström (Swedish, 1843–1924)
• Culture: Sweden, 19th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on fabric
• Dimensions: Unframed: 47 x 33.5 cm (18 1/2 x 13 3/16 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1996.274

A detail from the museum

Before becoming an artist, Ture Nikolaus Cederström was a cavalry officer.

Collection credit

Gift of the Frances W. Ingalls Trust

Further reading listed by the museum

• Argencourt, Louise d', and Roger Diederen. Catalogue of Paintings. Pt. 4. European Paintings of the 19th Century. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1974.

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.