Betzy Nilsen

Betzy Nilsen of 1887, in the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo, is a portrait of a woman who may have been known personally to Munch's circle in Kristiania. In 1887, Munch was participating in the bohemian intellectual milieu around the writer Hans Jæger, whose circle challenged bourgeois sexual and social conventions — the portrait of an individual woman identified by first name only is consistent with the informality of this social world. The work comes from the same year as some of Munch's most significant early paintings and represents his developing ability to capture individual character within a style still primarily informed by Norwegian Naturalism before his transformative encounter with French Post-Impressionism.

The portrait is rendered with more direct confident handling than some of Munch's contemporaneous works, the face and figure captured in strokes that convey the sitter's physical presence without the academic finish of a formal commissioned portrait. The limited palette and relatively direct paint application suggest a work made in a single or few sittings rather than a sustained studio composition.