MURA · THE COLLECTION · ANNA ANCHER

The Artist’s Mother in the Red Room

The Artist's Mother Ane Hedvig Brøndum in the Red Room is an oil painting by Anna Ancher from 1909, in the National Gallery of Denmark (SMK) in Copenhagen. It measures 38.8 by 56.8 cm, is signed "A. Ancher 1909", and came to the museum in 2011 as a gift from Ny Carlsbergfondet. Inventory number KMS8654; on view in Room 224.

Anna Ancher · 1909 · Oil on canvas · Danish painting · story written 25 September 2026

What you are looking at

SMK's catalogue text, by Peter Nørgaard Larsen, describes the scene: sunlight falls on the wall like columns of light, both in the red room in the foreground and in the blue room seen beyond. In the reflected light one can make out shadows cast by curtains and potted plants. In a wicker chair, propped up by cushions, sits Anna Ancher's mother, Ane Brøndum, reading a book. The museum notes that the picture was once exhibited as "Fru Brøndum skriver" (Mrs Brøndum writing), but that she is reading, not writing.

Ane Hedvig Brøndum, born Møller (1826-1916), was the wife of Erik Andersen Brøndum (1820-1890), owner of Brøndums Hotel in Skagen, where Anna was born on 18 August 1859. SMK's biography says the many drawn and painted portraits of her mother, made from around 1890 until Ane's death in 1916, hold a special place in Ancher's work as a tribute both to the person and to old age.

How it was painted

The scene is peaceful, Larsen writes, and Skagen seems far from the hectic modern life of the big cities; time almost stands still. Even so, Ancher's paintings are among the most modern made in Denmark at the time. Her willingness to let light carry the subject, and her saturated combination of pure blues and reds, point far ahead. SMK's biography calls her first and foremost a colourist, occupied with colour in Skagen's sharp light, and mentions an earlier interior, Solskin i den blå stue (1891), as a step towards this assurance. Ancher trained with Vilhelm Kyhn in Copenhagen and in Paris under Puvis de Chavannes, and married the painter Michael Ancher in 1880. She died in Skagen on 15 April 1935.

Where it went

The provenance recorded by SMK runs through Danish private ownership: sold at Bukowski in Copenhagen on 22 April 1991, at Bruun Rasmussen in Vejle on 12 August 2008, and again at Bruun Rasmussen on 28 November 2011 (auction 825, lot 28), where it was acquired for SMK as a gift from Ny Carlsbergfondet. It has since been lent to Nordic Impressions at the Phillips Collection (2018-19), to the Anna Ancher retrospective at SMK, Skagens Museum and Lillehammer Kunstmuseum (2020-21), and to Museum Kunst der Westküste (2022). It hangs in Room 224.

Why it is in Mura

The painting is in Mura's Nordic Light collection, filed as quiet: warm red walls, a cool blue doorway and a reader absorbed in her book.

What you hear in the app

Begin with the light on the wall. For a moment, let the reader wait. The room itself seems to be receiving a visitor.

Anna Ancher painted her mother, Ane Hedvig Brøndum, in nineteen oh nine. Her mother had helped run Brøndum's Hotel in Skagen. Now retired, she appears here reading in a wicker chair, supported by cushions that bring her closer to the table and the light.

Ancher lived nearby and often visited. This was a familiar person in a familiar room. Yet familiarity has not made the painting casual. Look at the strength of the colours: red and blue around the quiet figure, with sunlight bringing another warmth into the space.

The window is not the centre of our attention, but its effects are everywhere. Light and reflected shapes let the world outside enter without disturbing the reader.

There is no grand event to wait for. The painting asks us to give an ordinary moment the attention we might otherwise save for something extraordinary. A person reading. A room held in colour. Enough to stay with.