Portrait of the Poet Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

This 1900 portrait of Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson held by the National Museum in Oslo exists alongside the version in the Statens Museum for Kunst, reflecting Werenskiold's habit of revisiting important subjects and the exceptional demand for portraits of Norway's most celebrated cultural figure. Bjørnson — whose works earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1903 and whose words became the Norwegian national anthem — represented a generation for whom cultural and national assertion were intertwined. Werenskiold's intimate knowledge of Bjørnson through the Lysaker circle gave these portraits a quality of familiarity that official commissions rarely achieve. The Oslo version speaks to Norwegian institutions' determination to hold images of their own cultural heroes, while the Copenhagen version speaks to Bjørnson's pan-Scandinavian stature.

As with the Copenhagen version, Werenskiold employs a warm, concentrated palette and three-quarter pose. The face receives the most deliberate modelling, with the background handled loosely. Subtle differences in the specific light conditions and paint handling between this version and the Copenhagen canvas suggest each was painted independently rather than copied.