Sunny Parlor.

Sunny Parlor at the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin captures one of the less typical atmospheric conditions in Hammershoi's Strandgade paintings: direct sunlight entering the apartment's rooms. Most of his interiors are lit by diffuse, overcast northern light, and the intrusion of strong sunlight created a different tonal situation — harder shadows, higher contrast, warm patches on floor and wall — that he painted with the same systematic attention he gave to his usual grey light. The Alte Nationalgalerie holds major works of nineteenth and early twentieth century German and European art, placing this Danish canvas within a broad European context.

A sunlit interior required Hammershoi to manage hard-edged pools of warm light on floor and wall surfaces, contrasted against the cool shadows beyond the light's reach. The usual evenness of his palette gives way to higher contrast and a warmer primary tone in the illuminated zones.