Eine Premiere

The title means a premiere, and the debut in question is a small one, a naked infant meeting the water for the first time, held at the edge by his mother on a bright summer shore. Zorn was a Swedish painter fascinated by water and skin in open light, and he caught the whole scene in gouache, working quickly on paper. It made his name abroad. Shown at the Paris world's fair of 1889, it won him a medal and helped launch an international career that would soon carry him to America. Zorn was restless about his own success, though. Years later, dissatisfied with this very sheet, he deliberately damaged it, and it survives today still bearing the marks, rescued before he could finish the job.