A Frisian Family Drinking Coffee

A Frisian Family Drinking Coffee

Oil on canvas Signed and dated lower left: Carl Ludwig Jessen Deezbüll 1897 100 x 154.5 cm

After working for a time as a carpenter, Carl Ludwig Jessen moved to Copenhagen to study at the famous art academy in 1865. Afterwards he moved back to Northern Frisia. Despite sojourns to Italy and Paris, Jessen remained loyal to his homeland and came to be known throughout Germany as the ?Friesenmaler?. Jessen's lifelike works chronical Frisian peasant life in the late 19th century. His paintings illustrate the houses, gardens, customs, costumes, and characters of the people of Frisia. The present work, showing a family drinking coffee together, is an unusually monumental example.