A painter with a straw hat, sitting with his box.

A Painter with a Straw Hat, Sitting with His Box by Laurits Tuxen, dated around 1900, depicts a fellow artist at rest outdoors — identified only by the tools of his trade: the portable paint box and the straw hat that announced plein-air work in the summer sun. The subject may be a colleague from the Skagen artists' colony, where informal images of painters at work or rest were common. Such artist-painting-artist scenes were a form of professional self-documentation within a community, recording the social reality of the plein-air life rather than the finished product of their shared endeavour.

Tuxen handles the informal subject with appropriate looseness, capturing the casual posture of the seated painter with plein-air directness. The straw hat, paint box, and summer outdoor light are rendered with quick, assured brushwork that matches the unhurried mood of the scene.