(Naestved 1834–1922 Frederiksberg)
Siblings Resting on a Forest Path in the Summer, signed, dated N. C. Hansen 1895, oil on canvas, 109 x 85 cm, framed

The Danish portrait and genre painter Niels Christian Hansen studied painting at the Royal Danish Academy of Art in Copenhagen from 1851. In the early 1860s he undertook numerous study trips to France, England and Belgium. After his artistic training, he worked mainly as a portrait painter from about 1855 before following in the footsteps of his father, Carl Christian Hansen. The latter was one of Denmark’s first daguerreotypists and a pioneer in portrait photography. In 1867, Niels Christan Hansen founded the photo studio “Hansen & Schou” with his brother Georg Emil Hansen and the merchant Albert Schou, and, only two years after opening, became royal purveyors to the court and portrayed mainly aristocrats and the bourgeoisie.
From 1889 Hansen withdrew from photography to devote himself to painting. His formative years as a photographer are clearly recognisable in his later paintings, which, as in the present lot, give the impression of photographic accuracy. The warm summer atmosphere of the forest in which two children are resting in a clearing is depicted by Hansen in a skilfully detailed, naturalistic style. The boy, standing with his walking stick next to the girl sitting on the soft forest floor, seems delicate and small between the mighty trunks of the trees. The painter knew how to position the children in the picture and yet give nature enough space, allowing the scene to appear refreshingly spontaneous.