A stroll on the beach
Michael Ancher is probably best known for his many paintings of Skagen’s fishermen and their battle with the harsh nature of Skagen, but he also depicted the more peaceful side of life in the town. At the start of the 1890s, P.S. Krøyer painted his first blue-toned atmospheric pictures of Skagen South beach, and Michael Ancher was very inspired by these images. In Ancher’s paintings from the 1880s, the beach is first and foremost a place of work, but in the 1890s, the beach also became a promenade for the bourgeoisie, and this is precisely what Ancher has painted in this picture. In the painting, you can see the merchant and counselor, Lars Holst’s four daughters and a friend: In the front, Ida Holst, on the left, her sister, Anna Holst with her friend Elisabeth Bang (who later married the violinist Anton Svendsen), then Minne and on the right, Sophie Holst.
