Around the Paraffin Lamp

Around the Paraffin Lamp belongs to a group of works that feature Munch's family home as their subject matter. It is evening and people are reading at the living room table. The scene is captured as a diffuse, atmospheric sketch. The paraffin lamp on the table is the picture's light source. With thinning hair, a grey beard and puffing at a long pipe, the figure in the foreground with his back to the viewer can be identified as the artist's father. The figure on the left is more difficult to distinguish and is described in the literature as either the artist's brother or sister. The picture can be seen as a counterpart to the National Museum's Andreas Reading (The National Museum, NG.M.02810) from the same year. Both depict simple, private, everyday situations. Around the Paraffin Lamp is generally described as a sketch or study. The panel on which it is painted is unevenly cut at the bottom, and the back has been used as a palette.

The inclusion of the painting in the National Gallery's Munch exhibition of 1927 was probably its first showing. In the respective catalogue it is dated 1884--85. It was Jens Thiis who took charge of the exhibition, and he later revised the information about the picture's date: "cat. no. 10. Munch's father and brother indoors with lamplight was painted [18]83 at Olaf Ryes plass" (Thiis, 1933, 57). The picture is also reproduced in Thiis' book, this time with the title Familien omkring lampen (The Family around the Lamp). In this context, he mentions that it was previously owned by Ludvig Ravensberg, but had since been acquired by the Mustad family. Mustad must have purchased it sometime between 1927 and 1933, since it was still in the artist's possession at the time of the 1927 exhibition. In 1959, Charlotte and Christian Mustad bequeathed this and several other Munch paintings to the National Gallery. Around the Paraffin Lamp entered the collection following the death of Christian in 1970.

Vibeke Waallann Hansen The text was first published in Edvard Munch in the National Museum. A comprehensive overview (Oslo: National Museum, 2022).

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