This early 20th-century oil painting by Danish artist Axel Søeborg (1872-1939) depicts a priest reading the bible within an interior.

Story

Imagine you’re the priest, a man of faith and routine in equal measure. Every morning, you move a dining chair to your favourite spot by the window and read the gospel. On this day in November, the view across the lake shimmers with a silvery light as the distant firs stand motionless. These are the moments you treasure, they ground you amid an ever-advancing world, seemingly more complex than its ever been.

Several years previous, your wife passed, but the mantel clock continues to chime as it always has.

Context

Axel Søeborg was an outsider. He produced an interesting body of work including introspective self-portraits, greyish landscapes and quiet interior scenes. It seems he was forever searching and lived in various locations including Småland and Lapland. For his self-portraits, he was known to create a sense of drama by using a candle placed upon a palette.

Søeborg trained at Sophus and Gustav Vermehren’s drawing school and later at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen. Also under Laurits Tuxen and Peter Alfred Schou.

Signed lower left and held within a gilt frame with coved sides, probably original.

Learn more about Axel Søeborg in our directory.

Medium: Oil on canvas
Overall size: 31” x 31” / 79cm x 79cm
Year of creation: c. 1915
Condition: Artwork presents well. Areas of craquelure but the paint is stable. Frame with some light wear.