By the fireside

By the Fireside, painted by Krøyer in 1903, depicts the intimate warmth of domestic interior life, a subject he pursued alongside his famous outdoor coastal scenes. The fireside setting — glowing light, enclosed space, human comfort — offered a counterpoint to Skagen's expansive beaches, and Krøyer brought to it the same sensitivity to light that distinguished his plein-air work. The painting was made during a period of personal difficulty, as his marriage to Marie was under strain and his health was beginning to falter. The Skagens Museum holds it as part of the most comprehensive collection of his work, preserved in the town that gave his art its deepest subject.

Krøyer handles the firelight with careful attention to its warm, directional quality — the way it models faces and surfaces from below and to one side. He balances the glow of the fire against cooler ambient tones to create a convincing sense of enclosed, lamplit space.