Carl Larsson, "Interior, Furstenberg Gallery"

Carl Larsson, Interior of the Fürstenberg Gallery, 1885; Göteborgs Konstmuseum (Gothenburg Museum of Art).

The modern, colorized version shown below is probably the result of a digital edit, since it's more precisely detailed than might be expected from a recently painted reproduction. However, the original is much more naturalistic, and more beautifully presented than the modern interpretation — almost making you feel as though you're in the gallery yourself, participating in this richly composed Belle Époque scene. In addition, the lifelike quality of the authentic piece is more in keeping with Larsson's other work. The museum points out that many of the artworks and individuals in the painting can be identified:

To the right stands Ernst Josephson, stooping, wholly focused on painting Göthilda Fürstenberg's portrait (which was never completed). Seated with his back to them, her husband Pontus is studying what is probably a print. [...] The background is filled by Raphaël Collin's vast painting, Summer (1884). In the middle of the room stands Per Hasselberg's sculpture The Snowdrop (1885).

Larsson's watercolour also gives us glimpses of works by Auguste Pointelin, Alfred Wahlberg, and Hans Heyerdahl. The sculptures decorating the cornice were done by Per Hasselberg [and] the corner ornamentation was the work of French sculptor Louis Étienne Albert-Lefeuvre.

Altered version of a painting by Carl Larsson.

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