Model Scratching her Arm

The Munch Museum files this among its paintings, though it is drawn. Munch made it in 1891 in coloured crayon on canvas, and at 73 centimetres tall it has the size of a painting too. A model with loose, reddish-gold hair falling to her waist stands in a long white dress, head bowed, caught scratching one arm with the other hand, as the title says. Munch never signed it. It stayed in Munch's own keeping, and when he died in 1944 it passed with everything else he owned to the city of Oslo. The canvas also carries water stains. A conservator's study of that bequest found such stains on almost 13 percent of its paintings and concluded they were probably accidental, picked up outdoors while Munch worked or later in poor storage.