Old men smoking a pipe

Painted in 1906, this late oil canvas depicts elderly men smoking pipes — a subject Anker returned to across his career as a natural counterpart to his images of children and domestic labour. Old men smoking represented the slower, reflective pace of advanced age within the community, a social role as recognisable in Ins as the working women or schoolchildren who populate his more celebrated genre scenes. By 1906 Anker was in his early seventies and had been working with his left hand for five years following his 1901 paralysis. That he continued to paint richly characterised elderly male subjects at this stage of his life gives the work an additional dimension: artist and subjects alike inhabit an honourable old age, persisting with quiet dignity. The pipe, a consistent motif in Anker's imagery of elderly men, carries no moral censure — unlike his early treatment of the drinker, the pipe-smoking elder is a figure of earned rest and sociability rather than degradation.

Late Anker left-hand technique applied to elderly male subjects produces particularly sympathetic results: the slightly broader, more deliberate stroke-work of his adapted execution suits the textured, weathered faces of old men. He does not seek the smooth finish appropriate to children's skin; instead, the handling of aged physiognomy becomes more vigorous and free.