Advertisement

art

Danish painting sells for record-breaking 31.5 million kroner

Ritzau/The Local
Ritzau/The Local - [email protected]
Danish painting sells for record-breaking 31.5 million kroner
Hammershøi's ‘Interior from Strandgade 30’ was sold at auction for 31.5 million kroner. Photo: Ida Guldbæk Arentsen/Ritzau Scanpix

Vilhelm Hammershøi's 1900 painting ‘Interior from Strandgade 30’ was sold at auction on Tuesday for 31.5 million kroner, a new Danish record.

Advertisement

Prior to auction, the painting was valued at 20-30 million kroner. It depicts Hammershøi's wife, Ida Ilsted, in the apartment in Copenhagen’s Christianshavn neighbourhood where the couple lived from 1898 to 1908.

One of Denmark’s most famous artists, Hammershøi was born in Copenhagen in 1864. Much of his work depicts portraits, architecture, and interiors in his native city.

The price for ‘Interior from Strandgade 30’, raised in Tuesday’s sale at the Bruun Rasmussen auction house, makes the work the most expensive painting ever sold at an auction in Denmark.

The previous record was held by Norwegian Edvard Munch's ‘La Promenade des Anglais’, which was sold for 6.9 million kroner in 2006.

The most expensive Danish painting ever sold is also a Hammershøi.

In December 2017, his painting ‘Interior with Woman with Piano, Strandgade 30’ from 1901 was sold for $6,211,700 by American-British auction house Sotheby's in New York.

Hammershøi's works were in the past sold for relatively modest prices, but have become considerably more sought-after since the 1980s.

'Interior from Strandgade 30' was sold by Bruun Rasmussen in 1960 for just 9,600 kroner.

The seller of the painting at Tuesday's auction is anonymous and bought the work for an unknown price in 1976.

The painting was sold to a foreign buyer, Bruun Rasmussen has confirmed.

READ ALSO: Rare Danish coin fetches record sum at auction

More

Join the conversation in our comments section below. Share your own views and experience and if you have a question or suggestion for our journalists then email us at [email protected].
Please keep comments civil, constructive and on topic – and make sure to read our terms of use before getting involved.

Please log in to leave a comment.

See Also