Fra Burmeister & Wains jernstøberi

Molten iron pours through the foundry in a burst of yellow-orange light, throwing the anonymous workers and the great timber structure of the room into relief. P.S. Krøyer painted the Burmeister & Wain iron foundry in 1885 at the moment when industrial labour was becoming a subject for Danish art, not as an allegory or a distant curiosity but as the defining reality of the modern city. The composition looks spontaneous, like a moment seized in passing, yet its diagonals are carefully built: the beams, casting vessels and lines of work lead the eye into the heat at the centre. The blue-grey smoke and the glowing metal make a deliberately narrow colour harmony, while the thick, pastose brushwork gives the scene the physical force of the process it records. The commission came from the company, and the painting was given to the museum in 1922 by Hartvig and Mathilde Burmeister. It is held in the Statens Museum for Kunst (National Gallery of Denmark).