#frukostdags

Hanna Hirsch Pauli (Swedish, 1864-1940), Frukostdags (Breakfast time), 1887. Nationalmuseum Sweden.

Frukostdags (1887) by Hanna Hirsch Pauli

At the end of the 19th century, the number of women who chose the artist career was increasing. An important reason for this was that the artist courses were also opened to women. One of the most prominent of the generation that broke through in the 1880s was Hanna Pauli, née Hirsch. She studied at August Malmström's Painting School for Women and at the Art Academy in Stockholm and then at the Académie Colarossi in Paris.

The painting Breakfast Time was created in the Stockholm archipelago in the summer of 1887, shortly before Hanna Hirsch married the painter Georg Pauli. The painting's motif has a number of counterparts in Nordic and French art from the latter part of the 19th century. The elaborate meal, inside a dining room or out in the open, was depicted by several of the French Impressionists, as well as by Scandinavians such as Carl Larsson, Peder Severin Krøyer and Laurits Andersen Ring. Hanna Pauli has concentrated above all on the depiction of light, and has put a lot of effort into reproducing how the light falls through the foliage of the trees and creates a lively shimmer in the tablecloth and on the ground. The reflections in cups, dishes, coffee pots and glass bowls are reproduced with great accuracy.