Carl Skånberg, the Artist

Carl Skånberg, the Artist (1878) is an early oil portrait by Carl Larsson, painted when both men were young artists in Paris. Carl Skånberg was a Swedish painter who, like Larsson, had come to Paris to absorb the contemporary developments in French painting — both men would later work at Grez-sur-Loing, the colony that transformed Scandinavian plein-air practice. In 1878 Larsson was still finding his way as an artist, not yet the celebrated illustrator of Swedish domestic life he would become in the 1890s; he was working primarily in oil and experimenting with the academic naturalism current in Paris at the time. Artist-to-artist portraits like this one served as records of friendship and shared professional identity. The Nationalmuseum in Stockholm holds this early oil, a somewhat unusual work within Larsson's oeuvre, which is dominated by watercolour.

Oil on canvas in the academic naturalist manner of Paris in the late 1870s — relatively controlled modelling, dark background tones, and careful attention to the face's tonal structure. This is Larsson working in oil in the conventional portrait mode, before the watercolour technique and decorative line that would define his mature style emerged from the Grez experience.