At the grave.

Painted in 1913 and held by the Skagens Museum, 'At the Grave' depicts one of the most solemn subjects in Ancher's oeuvre — a figure or figures at a graveside — and stands as a comparatively rare engagement with grief, loss, and mortuary ritual in a body of work otherwise dominated by domestic warmth and communal life. The Skagen community experienced death with particular regularity: the fishing trade was hazardous, and losses at sea were a constant dimension of village life. Funerary customs and the practice of visiting graves were therefore familiar community rituals rather than exceptional events. Ancher's decision to paint this subject in 1913 may have been prompted by a specific bereavement within her circle, though the work's title is general enough to resist biographical identification. The graveyard as a setting offered Ancher particular light conditions — the open sky, the shadows of trees or monuments, the white or stone-grey of grave markers — that differed from both her domestic interiors and her garden subjects. The painting's quiet dignity reflects the same humane attention to ordinary life and death that distinguishes all of Ancher's work from the theatrical treatments of grief in academic painting.

Oil on canvas with muted, sombre tonality appropriate to the subject. The palette draws on the grays, blacks, and subdued greens of a graveyard setting. Figures, if present, are observed in postures of quiet grief or contemplation rather than melodramatic mourning. Light is diffused and cool.