Karin by the shore

Karin by the shore (Karin vid stranden) is a 1908 watercolour on paper by the Swedish painter Carl Larsson, showing his wife Karin in the garden of their home at Sundborn; it belongs to the Malmö Art Museum (Malmö Konstmuseum).

Larsson had met the painter Karin Bergöö at the Scandinavian artists' colony in Grez-sur-Loing and married her in 1883. In 1888 her father gave the young family a small house, Lilla Hyttnäs, at Sundborn near Falun in Dalarna. Carl and Karin furnished and decorated it to their own taste, and through his watercolours and books it became one of the best-known artists' homes in the world. His family were his favourite models, and many of the interiors he painted were Karin's work.

The watercolour shows a sunny early-autumn day on the bank of the Sundborn river outside the house. Karin, in a long black dress, blue apron and broad white hat, pauses by a border of flowers with her hand raised to her chin. Out on the water their daughter Brita, in Sundborn folk costume, sits in a rowing boat with the dog Joup-Joup. Larsson signed it with his monogram and the date 1908.

Larsson reproduced the picture in his book Åt solsidan (On the Sunny Side), published in 1910 with 32 paintings and accompanying text. There he wrote that Karin walks along the shore looking wistfully at the very last flowers of autumn, which froze the following night. The City of Malmö bought the watercolour at the Baltic Exhibition held in Malmö in 1914. It measures 54.3 by 75 cm, and in 2011–2012 it was lent to the exhibition Carl Larsson: From Grez-sur-Loing to Sundborn at the Turku Art Museum and the Ateneum in Helsinki.