Fishmonger's daughter

Anna Ancher’s Fisherman’s Girl is part of the founding donation of the National Gallery of Iceland, presented by the artist in 1886, when she was already renowned in her home country. It is also the first pastel work, and one of the first works by a woman artist, to enter the museum’s collection. The girl in the painting is Maren Sofie Olsen, Ancher’s neighbour in Skagen, Jutland. Ancher (née Brøndum) grew up in the town’s guesthouse, where a group of artists started to visit in the 1870s and formed an artists’ colony, far from the urban and industrial regions of Denmark. Anna and her husband, the painter Michael Ancher (who also donated works to the National Gallery of Iceland) were among the Skagen artists who sought subjects in the simple everyday life of the rural fishing village, surrounded by nature, which they portrayed in realist style. Anna’s work is characterised by the stillness and intimacy of her immediate surroundings, which may be attributed in part to the influence of 17th -century Dutch art, not least the interiors of the Delft school. This is evident in the sensitive and nuanced handling of light and colour. Ancher’s sense of place and her insight into the life of the peasantry also informs the interpretive depth of the work, in which light falls on an introspective visage, creating an atmosphere of peaceable dignity and contemplation. Maren Sofie does not look out of the picture, but inwards; thus, in the interplay of exterior reality and interior life, the artist imbues the work with spiritual meaning.