Fra et romersk osteria

Carl Bloch’s most popular genre painting shows a young man at a Roman osteria, his gaze caught between the carafe’s ambiguous curves and the two forks loosened from the tablecloth. The technical bravura of the reflective metal and the rich, seductive light is characteristic of Bloch’s mature painting; the subject is a precursor to the genre scenes of Vilhelm Hammershøi and the later Skagen painters. The canvas, 148.5 × 177.5 cm, is held by the Statens Museum for Kunst (National Gallery of Denmark).