An old wife of a fisherman

Anna Ancher's portrait of 'An Old Wife of a Fisherman' (1887) depicts one of the aged women of the Skagen fishing community — the wives and widows of fishermen who had shaped by generations of the North Jutland fishing economy. Ancher's consistent attention to the older women of Skagen — their weathered faces, their patient endurance, their direct gaze — gave these portraits a dignity and individuality that placed them among the most important documents of the fishing community's female world. This specific old woman, unnamed, represents an entire generation of Skagen women.

Ancher renders the aged fisherman's wife with the same direct, individualized observation she brought to all her Skagen portraits — the face's weathering and character depicted without romanticization or condescension. The outdoor or interior light of the Skagen environment gives the portrait its characteristic luminosity. The woman's direct gaze at the painter creates a relationship of mutual observation that gives Ancher's portraits their distinctive psychological quality.