After the sitting

The painting "After the sitting" from 1884 by Richard Bergh was first shown at the Paris Salon the same year. Bergh had traveled to Paris, like many other Nordic artists, to finish his studies in the capital of the arts, and was strongly influenced by the new realism in painting. The modernity of "After the sitting" made a big impression on the contemporary Swedish art critics but they were also shocked by the half-clothed model and the relentless daylight coming in from the studio skylights. The painting depicts an everyday event of an artist's reality as faithfully as possible. The national romanticist Richard Bergh was one of the prominent figures in the Swedish art scene in the late 1800's.