Two young mothers with their small children. Study for “Vaccination”.

This 1899 cardboard study, explicitly identified as a preparatory work for Ancher's larger 'Vaccination' composition, offers rare access to her working method — the rapid observational study that precedes the resolved painting. Vaccination as a subject reflects the late nineteenth-century public health campaigns that brought medical intervention into rural Danish communities, and Ancher's interest in this subject — mothers bringing infants to be vaccinated — engages with the intersection of modern medicine, maternal anxiety, and community resilience. The subject of two young mothers with small children waiting for vaccination combines genre painting with social documentation, capturing a specific modern practice within the intimate visual world of Skagen's domestic life. The cardboard support was Ancher's preferred medium for preparatory work and informal studies, allowing rapid working in oil without the preparation required for canvas. The study's relationship to a larger resolved work gives it documentary value beyond its immediate pictorial qualities.

Preparatory studies in oil on cardboard allowed Ancher to resolve compositional, tonal, and colour problems before committing to canvas. This study likely focuses on the specific poses of the mothers and children, their spatial relationship, and the quality of the light — the 'problems' that the finished Vaccination would need to resolve. The cardboard's absorbency creates a matte surface appropriate to rapid working.