This 1893 painting references Munch’s painful memory of losing his sister, Sophie, to tuberculosis in 1877. He renders his whole family, siblings and parents, at the ages they were at when she passed. By choosing to paint this moment at those ages, Munch seeks to revisit the moments before death, where he feels everyone in the family is irrevocably unchanged– until the passing. Sophie’s last request in life was to sit up in a chair, which Munch portrays in this painting with the back of the chair visible alongside an arm and skirt– Sophie before she died. Each sibling is depicted in a different position across the canvas, indicating their different stages in grieving and age, while the parents stand around Sophie’s chair to care for her.

SKU: 60702
Creator: Edvard Munch
Date: 1893
Original Medium: oil on canvas
Location: Munch Museum