Born in Saxkobing, Ilsted’s initial artistic training and practice were solidly conventional. His early success in Denmark was quickly matched by recognition of his talents at the Paris Salon. By the 1890s the traditionalism of his early career gave way to more contemporary subjects, possibly a result of his friendship with the important painter Carl Holsøe, and with Vilhelm Hammershøi, who married his sister Ida in 1891. Together with Holsøe and Hammershøi, Ilsted formed what amounted to a school of interior painting in Denmark at the turn of the century. All three artists had been members of The Free Exhibition, a progressive exhibiting society set up in 1890.



Ilsted was the only member of the Copenhagen Interior School to love prints and printmaking, and to make them a primary means for artistic expression. He chose the medium of mezzotint in 1909. Created by scraping modulated tones from a densely roughened ‘black’ copperplate, mezzotint is ideal for replicating a painting style rich in chiaroscuro. No nineteenth-century professional printmaker or artist has employed the medium more aptly or more skilfully, especially in colour work.



Ilsted found the mezzotint perfect for expressing the tonal nuances and luminous highlights of the calm and quiet scenes that became his key subject. The artist’s warm regard for Dutch genre painting of the mid-seventeenth century pervades his art as much as his admiration for Hammershøi’s work. The very subject matter is Dutch, removed to modern Denmark, and his works recall those of Vermeer, de Hooch and ter Borch.