Christmas in the Brothel

Christmas in the Brothel

Norwegian: Julaften i bordell
Artist	Edvard Munch
Year	1903–04
Type	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

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]

References

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.