The Kitchen. From A Home (26 watercolours)

The Kitchen. From A Home is one of the most practically informative of the 26 watercolors in the Ett hem series. The kitchen at Lilla Hyttnäs documented here was designed by Karin Larsson with functional intelligence: copper pots, wooden utensils, and painted cabinetry created a working space that was simultaneously beautiful and practical. The image participates in a broader late nineteenth-century debate about the design of domestic service spaces, which reformers increasingly argued should receive the same aesthetic attention as reception rooms. Karin Larsson's kitchen design was in advance of its time in treating the working kitchen as a space worthy of visual consideration. The watercolor medium, with its transparency and speed, suited the documentation of a working space with gleaming copper surfaces and carefully organized implements. The publication of this image in 1899 reached an enormous audience and contributed to changing standards for kitchen design throughout Scandinavia and Germany.

Transparent watercolor requires careful management of warm and cool reflections from copper and tin surfaces. Larsson uses reserved white paper for the lightest metallic highlights and layered washes for the rich warm tones of copper. The compositional organization of shelves and hanging implements creates a decorative grid of domestic objects.