Mor og barn

A young woman sits in an interior with a child in her lap, spinning at a wheel, the yarn running between her fingers onto the spindle; the repetitive movement and its quiet rhythm have put the child to sleep. Anna Ancher was born in Skagen into the Brøndum family, whose hotel was the meeting place of the painters’ colony, and she was the only member of the group born in the town — and the only one to make the everyday life of its interiors her principal subject. She returned to the motif of mother and child again and again, letting the spinning wheel give way to a potted plant or the child’s dress change from red to blue, using the recurring subject the way a musician uses a theme and stripping away everything inessential. Nothing here disturbs the stillness except the reflection of the sun on the back wall, which admits a world outside the narrow room. The painting is held in the Statens Museum for Kunst (National Gallery of Denmark).