Bruno Liljefors

In the 1890s, Bruno Liljefors discovered a new environment that had a significant impact on his artistic expression, namely the archipelago. He became fascinated by its landscape, so different from the one he had grown up in. The current painting at the auction is a prime example of the artist's numerous depictions of eiders in the archipelago landscape.

This is how Bruno Liljefors describes the resting eider duck, also known as "åda":
"The åda's color closely resembles the brown base, but only when she has come ashore and laid herself on her eggs on the open skerry, and her brown-mottled back blends with old dry heather and moss, does her protective color come into its full right. Her round, clear eye is usually the first thing the observer discovers, although he may initially mistake it for a knothole in a dry root."

Allan Ellenius writes about this painting:

"The combination of detailed studies and plein air painting provides a synthesis of the entire archipelago landscape from various perspectives: the åda sheltered by heather tufts up close, the wide view towards the ultramarine sea, and the break at the horizon."