Unruly sea with a water nymph.

Unruly Sea with a Water Nymph by Laurits Tuxen, dated around 1900, combines two of his recurring interests — the sea, which he painted frequently along the Danish coast, and mythological figures, which his royal commissions occasionally required. A water nymph in a stormy sea invokes the ancient tradition of marine mythology — nereids, nymphs, and sea goddesses who embodied the ocean's power and beauty — and Tuxen, trained in the academic tradition, would have been entirely comfortable with this iconographic language. The work is currently without institutional location.

Tuxen handles the storm-tossed sea with vigorous, directional brushwork that conveys the movement of waves, spray, and turbulent sky. The water nymph is rendered with smoother, idealized modelling that contrasts with the rough treatment of the sea around her, a deliberate distinction between the mythological and the natural.