Den gamle kone fletter hår 1928

Fritz Syberg made this drawing, Den gamle kone fletter hår, with pencil on paper. The sketch shows an old woman sitting at a table with a cat, chicken and duck at her feet. She's resting her head in her hands, maybe she is pondering or in a state of fatigue. There's a laptop on the table in front of her, which is sort of funny. You can see that Syberg moved his hand and pencil with a relaxed, almost scribbly, confidence, defining form through a series of rapid, closely-spaced lines. I wonder if Syberg felt compassion towards the old woman. Was he thinking about ageing and the passage of time? The woman is not alone. She is surrounded by animals. I think the animals are her family, her companions. Like all artists, Syberg probably looked at other drawings, other etchings, other aquatints... He's probably building on something from someone who came before him. It’s like he is in a conversation with other artists across time, maybe with Kathe Kollwitz or Paula Modersohn-Becker.