Watercolor and ink on paper, 62.2 x 45 cm. Monogram signed CL within a circle and dated 1906.
Also titled ”Sommardag”
PROVENANCE
Fritzes Kungl. Hovbokhandel, Stockholm, acquired from the artist in October 1912.
Director Oscar Johansson (1881‑1961), Stockholm.
Swedish private collection.
EXHIBITED
Konstnärshuset, Stockholm, ”Carl Larsson. Separatutställning”, September 1906, cat. no. 49.
Kunstsalon Louis Bock & Sohn, Hamburg, February 1910.
Liljevalchs konsthall, Stockholm, ”Carl Larsson. Minnesutställning”, September-October 1953, cat. no. 286.
LITERATURE
Ulwa Neergaard, Carl Larsson. Signerat med pensel och penna, 1999, listed in the catalogue section under the year 1906 as cat. no. 1199.
”My favorite model Leontine!”
This is how Carl Larsson describes the young Leontina Lundström, who in Sundborn was usually called Leontine with an audible e at the end, in his memoirs ”Jag”. He writes about her in connection with her modeling for ”Dramats skapelse” for the ceiling of the Royal Dramatic Theatre. The same year he worked on this prestigious commission for the capital's new dramatic theater under construction, 1906, he executed the summer dream of the auction, ”På väg till badet”. In a true manner that can only be spelled Carl Larsson, he executes this chlorophyll-rich watercolor from his beloved Dalarna. In the lush garden of Spadarvet, Leontine sneaks along, dressed in a bathrobe billowing in the wind. On her way to a shower house reached via a path through the garden, she stops and peeks out from behind a branch.
Carl Larsson writes further in ”Jag”, in the chapter ”Mina modeller” about Leontine, whom he calls Nina in the text: ”So number three, Nina, that is to say for me number one, for after her I have painted most and the best nudes. She too was one of those children cast out into life; a drunken father and a sick mother as well as small siblings, for whom this little girl had to earn food and shelter!”
In the summer of 1906, Leontine wrote the following letter to Carl Larsson:
Ӂlkistan, 12.7.06.
Dear Mr. Larsson!
This summer I also take the liberty of asking Mr. Larsson if Mr. Larsson does not need a model and then I hope if Mr. Larsson can use me to be allowed to come to Mr. Larsson.
As it has been impossible for me to get a position so far, I am now without everything. Mr. Larsson will probably be more than impatient with me, but forgive me. The thought just came to me of Mr. Larsson and I thought that perhaps Mr. Larsson needs a model and I could fit. But I would be even happier if Mr. Larsson had any prospect of helping me to a position. Yes, Mr. Larsson, it is more than heavy to have been a model, there are great difficulties to go through if Mr. Larsson can help me I would be more than happy.
Respectfully with greetings to Mr. Larsson's good wife, Leontina Lundström.”
Carl Larsson took pity on his model and invited her up to Sundborn for the summer. The watercolor ”På väg till badet” is one of the results of this collaboration. Another is the watercolor ”Rygg och ros” as well as ”Modellen skriver vykort”. Furthermore, she was immortalized in ”Dramats skapelse” for the ceiling of the Royal Dramatic Theatre.
Larsson also tells in his memoirs how he got the idea that Leontine should try to become a nurse and how he encouraged her to ”grind (...) around the city, to all its doctors, until you are accepted”. It was slow at first, but Leontine was persistent, and in the end her efforts bore fruit: ”But then one fine day she came beaming with joy, it was a throat doctor who just needed a helper and wanted to try her. She stayed there. The doctor was a good and understanding man, who helped her complete some nursing course. And then one day an engineer came to have his throat looked at. Nina helped, the engineer happened to look closely into Nina's beautiful kind eyes – and now they are married. I often meet Nina with a row of kids, who beamingly press my hands and ask me to come home and see how well they are doing (...).”
The artist, who had found his home in watercolor as a medium when he was in Grez-sur-Loing in the 1880s, also brought the French tradition of plein air painting with him from there. When the floor of Carl Larsson's studio at Lilla Hyttnäs was covered with sketches for his monumental works, he moved out into the garden with his easel and executed some of his most delightful summer pictures. In the greenery of the open-air studio, with the wind fanning in the heat, pen and brush dance across the surface of the paper. A picture emerges that is so lovely that one as a viewer cannot help but smile. Leontine's charming peek-a-boo game is both innocent and a little bold. In Larsson's idyllic existence in Sundborn, he created his many beloved pictures. Carl Larsson had successfully achieved wide distribution with the pictures from his home in several publications. ”Spadarvet” was published in 1906, illustrated with pictures from the artist's small farm at the estate Spadarvet, which is located next to Lilla Hyttnäs. His home and family were his dearest circle of motifs, but friends and some models became so close that they were depicted with the same warmth.
