The three daughters of the artist in the garden

Fritz von Uhde's painting of his three daughters in the garden is among his most personal and intimate works — a private document of family life that deployed the same Impressionist light-handling he brought to his religious and social subjects. Uhde had three daughters — Ilse, Emmy, and Zenzi — who appeared repeatedly in his paintings in the late 1880s, serving as models for both informal domestic subjects and his modern religious scenes. This garden scene preserves a specific summer afternoon in the life of his Munich household, its privacy making it more candid than his public work.

Outdoor summer light — the dappled sunlight filtering through garden trees — is Uhde's technical preoccupation here. The three girls' white and light-colored dresses become receptors for colored light, flickering in and out of shade. His brushwork is rapid and broken, prioritizing luminous optical accuracy over descriptive precision.