Hans Jæger

By 1889 Hans Jaeger had already been to prison. His novel about the young free-thinkers of Kristiania, today's Oslo, was seized by the authorities as obscene the moment it appeared, and he served time for it. He led the bohemian circle Munch ran with, and his one commandment to them was to write their own lives straight onto the page. Munch, 25 here and painting his friend, was carrying that instruction into pictures instead. He shows Jaeger sunk back on a sofa in his hat and tight coat, sizing up the viewer through his spectacles. The National Gallery in Oslo bought the portrait in 1897, eight years after Munch first hung it in a students' hall.