Blooming garden in Fredensborg with irises and peonies

A woman in a long apron pauses on the garden path, watering can in hand, surrounded by peonies in full pink and red bloom on one side and tall purple irises on the other. Behind her sits an old thatched-roof cottage, half hidden by trees and a leafy hedge, with a pink house peeking out to the right. This is Fredensborg, a town north of Copenhagen, painted by the Danish artist Peder Mørk Mønsted, who was known across Europe for his ability to capture nature down to the last leaf and petal.

Mønsted trained under the famous landscape painter Peder Severin Krøyer, but he took a different path from the loose, moody style popular among many Danish painters of his time. He preferred precision, and it shows here in the way each flower and blade of grass is rendered with patient detail. The overcast sky keeps the colors muted rather than sunny, which lets the deep reds of the peonies and the cool blues of the irises hold your attention. It is a straightforward, well made picture of a summer garden, the kind of everyday scene Mønsted returned to again and again throughout his long career.