Ludvig Karsten

Munch painted this in the summer of 1905, at Aasgaardstrand, the small coastal town south of Kristiania where he kept a cottage. The sitter is Ludvig Karsten, a Norwegian painter 13 years his junior, who came to stay. It was an uneasy season. In June the Norwegian parliament had declared the union with Sweden dissolved, and for months afterwards troops sat on the border while the two governments negotiated. The visit ended badly too. After a night of drinking the two men fought, and Munch went back to the episode later in prints. The canvas is almost two metres high, with Karsten standing in a pale suit against hot orange, his face under the brim of his hat. It ended up in Stockholm, in the house of Ernest Thiel, a Swedish banker who was buying Munch steadily through exactly those years.