Edvard Munch – At Supper

At Supper

At Supper by Edvard Munch is an oil painting on canvas of 1883–1884, held under inventory number MM.M.00621 by the Munch Museum (Munchmuseet) in Oslo. The original measures 59.5 x 49 cm and lies across. The scene is an evening one: a family sits at the table by the light of a single lamp.

At the left, in front, a young woman sits turned in profile towards the centre. She wears a dark dress, her reddish-brown hair falls down her back, and her hands rest on the table. Hers is the largest and darkest shape in the work, and it closes the scene at the left like a curtain.

Behind the table at the centre sits an older bearded man with fair hair, turned towards us. His face is the most strongly lit passage in the whole work; the light falls on it from the side and lifts it out of the dark background. He leans slightly forward, as though listening or just speaking.

At the upper right there is a third figure, almost a silhouette: dark clothing, the head bowed, the face barely indicated. This person takes no part in the conversation but sits to one side and completes the ring around the table.

The source of light is a paraffin lamp with a pale glass shade, standing on the table to the right of centre. All the light in the scene comes from it: the white cloth glows, the faces rise out of the dark, and the edges of the room stay in a blue-grey gloom.

The table is covered with a white cloth carrying plates, a knife and a few glasses, each set down in a handful of quick strokes. At the upper left a window with pale panes and a red-brown frame is the only opening in an otherwise closed room.

The colour moves between blue-grey, brown and black, with warm reddish notes lighting up on the wall and in the young woman’s hair. The handling is broad and wet, and thin enough in places for the weave of the canvas to show through. This is the early Munch, barely twenty years old.

The museum records the work as unsigned and dates it to 1883 and 1884; the catalogue lists it as Woll M 106. Among the sitters it names the painter’s sister Inger and his father Christian Munch, so this is a scene from his own home.

The structure rests on the diagonal of the table running from the lower left corner towards the right, and on three heads arranged in an arc around the lamp. The eye starts at the dark figure in front, travels along the white cloth to the lit face, and settles on the flame.

It is the restraint that makes the scene strong. Nobody looks at anybody, nobody speaks loudly; the work catches that quiet, slightly tired hour after a meal that every household knows. Munch painted such domestic scenes all his life, and here he is beginning them.

Ours is hand-painted in oil on canvas, stroke by stroke, made to order and never printed. Because each is painted for its own order, no two match down to the detail, and the small differences are the mark of a hand. The hardest passage here is the lamplight, which has to stay soft rather than become a white patch.

The format lies across and the mood is warm and domestic, so the painting suits a dining room, a kitchen with a table, or a living room. A quiet, pale wall serves it best, since the work itself is dark. Hang it at eye level in warmer, even light.

Ten sizes are available from 45 x 38 cm up to 165 x 130 cm, along with a custom size, framed or unframed. More of the artist is in the Edvard Munch gallery, and we write about his life and painting on the Edvard Munch blog.