The Captain's Tales

An old officer in a dark uniform sits at a garden table with his hand raised near his mouth, clearly in the middle of a story, while a boy in a blue smock leans across the white tablecloth so as not to miss a word. Standing beside them, a young woman in a straw bonnet and pink skirt rests one hand on her hip, listening with the patient half smile of someone who has heard this particular tale before. The props tell you the meal is winding down: a polished coffee urn catching the light, a couple of glasses, a picnic basket parked on the bench. Behind them a thatched farmhouse and a field of grazing cattle sit in the summer haze.

The painter, Frants Henningsen (1850 to 1908), was a Dane who trained at the Royal Academy in Copenhagen and spent time in Paris, where French realism shaped how he looked at everyday life. He is best remembered for serious social subjects, above all his 1883 painting of a poor family's funeral procession, which made his name at home. This is Henningsen in a far lighter mood, a straightforward genre scene of the kind that sold well to middle class Danish buyers at the end of the century. The most enjoyable detail is the boy's face, caught wide eyed and slightly open mouthed, which does more to sell the captain's storytelling than any amount of gesturing could.