Evening in the Drawing Room. The Artist’s Mother and Wife 1891

Vilhelm Hammershøi created this quietly powerful painting using oil paint on canvas. Hammershøi's subdued palette gives the scene a timeless quality, as though he’s trying to portray a scene that is not bound to any particular era. Yet he shows us the textures of everyday life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the textures of domesticity, and how the work of women fills the time within domestic spaces. Here, we see the artist's wife knitting, a humble, repetitive task, a traditional skill passed down through generations. This slow, manual process is set against the backdrop of burgeoning industrialization, but these two worlds remain separate. The act of knitting, steeped in tradition, contrasts sharply with the rapid changes sweeping through society at the time, and it embodies labor, care, and quiet resistance. By understanding the materials and the making, we gain insight into Hammershøi’s commentary on value, labor, and the intimate world of women.