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Christa Zaat



Michael Peter Ancher (Danish painter) 1849 - 1927
Fiskere i Færd med at Sætte en Rorsbåd i vandet (Fishermen Launching a Rowing Boat), 1881
oil on canvas
120 x 183 cm. (47.24 x 72.05 in.)
Skagens Museum, Skagen, Denmark

Catalogue Note Skagens Museum:
From left we see fishermen Peter Svendsen and Jens Peter Karre holding an oar. Standing in the water in front of the boat, all the way to the left, is Ole Svendsen, and next to him in the blue shirt is Anders Johansen. Laurits Karre is standing behind the boat, and on the far right we see Christian Olsen and Anders Carlsen. Anders Godsk is standing in the boat at the helm. In the foreground, at the far right, we see Niels Henriksen standing with his hands behind his back.

In this picture Ancher is focusing on the heroic aspect of the fishermen's trade and the seriousness of the situation is reflected in the fishermen’s faces. At the end of the 19th century a large amount of paintings portraying fishermen and farmers were exhibited at the exhibition halls in the cities, including Charlottenborg in Copenhagen and the Salon in Paris. People in the cities often had a romantic notion of life in the countryside. Although they did not want to live as farmers or fishermen, the lives of these people and the surroundings they lived in, represented something original and unspoiled, which was something the urban population longed for. This marked the beginning of tourism in Skagen.

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Michael Peter Ancher is most associated with his paintings of fishermen and other scenes from the Danish port of Skagen. His paintings are classics and he is probably one of Denmark's most popular artists.

Michael Ancher came to Skagen in 1874 at the age of 25, and he was the only one of the visiting artists who settled permanently in the town. He grew up on the island of Bornholm, and at the age of 16, he began his apprenticeship as a clerk at the Kalø Manor in Djursland. Here, he began to draw and paint in his spare time, and in 1871 he was accepted as a student at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. Here, he met Karl Madsen, among others, who encouraged him to go to Skagen. In 1877, he was engaged to Anna Brøndum, and they married in 1880, and during their first years of marriage, the couple lived in the Garden House. After the birth of their daughter Helga in 1883, the family moved to Markvej in Skagen. Michael Ancher is known for his portrayals of Skagen's heroic fishermen and for his dramatic paintings of the fishermen's work at sea. In his large figure paintings he combines the classic compositional principles of historic paintings with a fascinating realism. In the early 20th century, Michael Ancher took an active part in the founding of Skagens Museum, but he died in 1927, the year before its official opening.