Christmas in the Brothel

Painting by Edvard Munch

Christmas in the Brothel

Norwegian: Julaften i bordell
Artist| Edvard Munch
Year| 1903–04
Medium| Oil on canvas
Dimensions| 60 cm × 88 cm (24 in × 35 in)
Location| Munch Museum, Oslo

Christmas in the Brothel (Norwegian: Julaften i bordell) is an oil-on-canvas painting by Norwegian painter Edvard Munch. The Expressionist painting was completed in 1903–04 and is housed at the Munch Museum in Oslo.

## Background

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The painting was done at a difficult time for Munch: a commission for a portrait in Hamburg (of a Senator Holthusen, the father in law of Munch's patron Max Linde) had come to naught because of disagreements. As a result, Munch suffered anxieties, which he attempted to manage with alcohol. A visit to a brothel in Lübeck is supposedly the background to Christmas in the Brothel, a "light yet melancholy" painting in which the working girls in a brothel have just finished decorating a Christmas tree. "Ironic, sentimentally unholy", the painting is interpreted as a commentary on both Linde's upper-class household (where Munch was staying at the time) and Munch's own "pietistic home background".[1] Like other paintings of the period, it shows Munch's association with Fauvism.[2] Prostitution was a favored topic of Munch's, and one particular room in a German brothel would later inspire an entire series of paintings, The Green Room.[3]

## See also

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* List of paintings by Edvard Munch

## References

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1. ^ Bischoff, Ultich (2000). Edvard Munch, 1863–1944. Taschen. p. 74. ISBN 9783822859711. Retrieved 9 April 2013.
2. ^ Clement, Russell T (1994). Les Fauves: a sourcebook. Greenwood. p. 73. ISBN 9780313283338. Retrieved 9 April 2013.
3. ^ Ringdal, Nils Johan (2007). Love for Sale: A World History of Prostitution. Grove. p. 251\. ISBN 9781555848088. Retrieved 9 April 2013.

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Edvard Munch

Paintings|

* List of paintings
* The Sick Child (versions from 1885 to 1926)
* Young Girls on a Bridge (versions from 1886 to 1927)
* Inger on the Beach (1889)
* Melancholy (1891–1893)
* Kiss by the Window (1892)
* Madonna (1892–1895)
* Starry Night (1893)
* Love and Pain (1893–1895)
* The Scream (versions from 1893 to 1910)
* Anxiety (1894)
* Ashes (1894–1895)
* Puberty (1894–1895)
* Self-Portrait with Cigarette (1895)
* Jealousy (versions from 1895 to the 1930s)
* The Kiss (1897)
* Inheritance (1897–1899)
* The Dance of Life (1899–1900)
* Christmas in the Brothel (1903–1904)
* Caricature Portrait of Tulla Larsen (1905)
* Morning Yawn (1913)
* Model by the Wicker Chair (1919–1921)
* Self-Portrait. Between the Clock and the Bed. (1940–1943)

Museums|

* Munch Museum

Related|

* Edvard Munch (1974 film)
* The Other Munch (2018 film)
* Munch (crater)

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