Lot 98: - Hans Heyerdahl , Norwegian 1857 - 1913 Portrett av Tupsy Jebe (Portrait of Tupsy Jebe) oil on panel

oil on panel

34.8 by 26.4cm., 13¾ by 10¼in.

Edvard Munch
Sale: Blomqvist Kunsthandel, Oslo, 7 October 1947

PROPERTY FROM A NORWEGIAN PRIVATE COLLECTION
An inscription in Norwegian on the reverse reads: 'This portrait of "Tupsy Jebe" is painted by Hans Heyerdahl and belonged to Edv. Munch. It was sold in our sale of Edv. Munch's private collection 7/10 47. On behalf of Blomqvist Kunsthandel, Carl Simonsen', and is stamped with the Edvard Munch estate stamp.

Tupsy Jebe was Munch's lover in Paris at the end of the 1890s. Daughter of a military officer from Trondheim and sister to the violinist Halvdan Jebe, Tupsy was an art student at the Colarossi art school. Munch executed a dry point of her, on the same zinc plate of which she did a portrait of Munch seated. Although Munch later spurned her advances, their bohemian relationship inspired him to retain this portrait as a keepsake in his collection.

Heyerdahl and Munch first met in the autumn of 1888 in AAsgaastrand. Heyerdahl had a formative influence on the young Munch and the pair were in regular contact over the following two decades. Heyerdahl was a regular visitor to Paris from the late 1870s onwards, living there from 1900-06.