Nanna og hendes moder

This 1897 painting depicts Nanna and her mother in a domestic setting, continuing Johansen's lifelong practice of painting the women closest to him with an intimacy rarely achieved in more formal portrait or genre work. Nanna — likely a family member — appears here alongside her mother in a double-portrait arrangement that allowed Johansen to explore the relationship between two generations while also staging a study in contrasting ages, physicalities, and psychological presences. The late 1890s represented a settled period in Johansen's career, his style fully mature and his subject matter increasingly focused on the small circle of family and home that defined his world. These paintings of known individuals in familiar spaces carry an almost documentary quality — records of real people in real rooms — while simultaneously aspiring to the elevated register of serious figure painting. Johansen's refusal of sentimentality or idealisation distinguishes works like this from contemporaneous bourgeois portrait painting, keeping them rooted in the Impressionist commitment to observed reality.

Johansen balances two figures within the composition, using spatial positioning and tonal contrast to suggest the generational relationship without melodrama. The palette is warm and domestic, with light falling selectively on the figures to animate their features. Brushwork is characteristically assured, with the faces receiving more careful attention than the surrounding interior.