Portrait of the Artist’s Wife, the Painter Anna Ancher

Portrait of the Artist's Wife, the Painter Anna Ancher, painted around 1900, is one of many portraits Michael Ancher made of his remarkable wife, who was herself one of Denmark's foremost painters. Anna Brøndum had married Michael Ancher in 1880, and the partnership of two serious artists in the same house created a sustained artistic exchange that shaped both their practices. Michael's portraits of Anna are not simply spousal records — they are observations of one artist by another, and Anna's own status as a painter gives these works a reciprocal quality since she painted him in return.

Ancher's portrait of Anna avoids the distancing formality of official portraiture, presenting her with the directness and intimacy of long familiarity. His handling of her features captures the quality of concentrated attention that characterized her own painting work, making this a portrait of an artist as much as a wife.