Hunters of Skagen

Eight men in green wool and battered hats have flopped down on a dune slope, boots dug into the sand, dogs sprawled among them. The hunt is over. In the bottom left corner lie the hares that made it worthwhile, painted with the same care as the men's faces. One hunter tips his head back for a drink, another leans on an elbow mid-sentence, and a red setter stretches out in the middle of the group as if it has earned the rest more than anyone. Behind them the land flattens out into pale grass and marsh that runs all the way to a low horizon, the kind of wide, half-empty terrain you find at the northern tip of Denmark.

Peder Severin Krøyer painted it at Skagen, the fishing town where he spent his summers from 1882 onward and became the best known member of the artists' colony there. He trained in Paris under Léon Bonnat, and that French naturalist habit of working outdoors shows in the sandy light and the loose, quick handling of the marram grass. Krøyer is more famous for his blue evening scenes of women walking the beach, so this one is a useful reminder that he was equally happy recording the plain business of men sitting around after a morning's shooting. No one poses for the viewer, and the picture is better for it: the interest lies in the small differences between eight tired faces and the way each dog has chosen its own spot.