The Net Mender (Garnbinderen)

The Net Mender (Garnbinderen) of 1879, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is one of Krohg's important early works depicting Norwegian fishing community labor. Net mending was essential, painstaking work that fell primarily to women and older fishermen — a subject combining the visual interest of intricate manual labor with the social reality of the fishing economy. Krohg painted this when he was twenty-four, recently returned from Germany with a solid academic training and eager to apply it to Norwegian subjects. The Metropolitan Museum's acquisition of this work speaks to the international recognition of Scandinavian Realist painting; American collectors were drawn to the combination of technical solidity and sympathetic social observation that characterized the best Norwegian painting of the period. The careful, patient act of mending nets offers a visual metaphor for the sustained attention that Realist painters brought to the observation of working life.

The net mending subject requires careful observation of hands, posture, and the material complexity of the fishing net itself. Krohg renders the figure with the tonal solidity of his German academic training, paying close attention to the play of light and the working environment.