Helene Schjerfbeck
Girl on a Red Sofa

Helene Schjerfbeck (1862–1946) portrayed in Girl on a Red Sofa (1882) her cousin, engrossed in drawing a plaster bust that stands before her on a chair. The girl sits, with an air of concentration, on a long, red-upholstered Gustavian sofa. Schjerfbeck painted this at Sjundby Manor in the town of Siuntio, where some of her maternal relations lived. She spent many summers of her youth at the manor, often capturing views from the area in her paintings. The summer of 1882 may have been a rainy one, as Schjerfbeck appears to have worked mostly indoors, depicting not only her cousins but also interiors from the manor.