Portrait of Cecilie Trier, née Melchior

ENGELSK Bertha Wegmann: Portrait of Cecilie Trier, née Melchior, 1885, oil on canvas, 125.9 x 140.2 cm, SMK – Statens Museum for Kunst, KMS8643 Thanks to new research and an increased awareness of the many overlooked, talented female artists active in the decades around 1900, Bertha Wegmann has been reinstated as one of the important artists of Danish art. With a large production that won her international acclaim, she covered many genres including portraits, pure landscapes, landscapes with figures, interiors, flower paintings, and still lives. However, it was the portraits – such as that of Cecilie Trier – that were exhibited at the great international exhibitions and resulted in medals and honourable mentions. As a case in point, the portrait of Trier was on display both at the World’s Fairs in Paris 1889 and Chicago 1893. This critical acclaim was due to the fact that Wegmann was an eminently skilled portrait painter who mastered the artistic effects of the genre. She was capable of delivering paintings that complied with the age’s demand for ’ambience portraits’: informal depictions of situations combining the profound character sketch with the naturalistic quality of the fleeting moment. Cecilie Trier, whose birth name was Melchior, belonged to the Jewish bourgeoisie in Copenhagen, and the family remained an important patron for Bertha Wegmann through the years. They ordered several portraits from her, and in her younger years they supported her financially so that she could pursue an artistic career by going abroad to study in Munich.