Otto Sinding - Nach dem Regen (After the Rain), 1873

Otto Sinding (1842–1909), Norway

Nach dem Regen (After the Rain), 1873

signed and dated Otto Sinding Karlsruhe 1873 lower right
oil on relined canvas
framed 59 × 101 cm (23.2 × 39.8 in)
unframed 41 × 83.5 cm (16.1 × 32.9 in)

Provenance:
The collection of Docent Carl-Gustav Montigny (1935–2025)

Comparable sale:
Christie’s, New York. Otto Sinding, Twilight After the Rain, 1875. 19th Century European Paintings, 27 May 1993, Lot 88. Price realised: USD 6,900.

Condition report
Recently restored by a professional conservator (2026). The painting is in very good condition, with clear and vibrant colours. The original frame shows an old patina with minor age-related flaws.

Essay
Otto Sinding’s Nach dem Regen (After the Rain) is a masterful early example of his ability to blend naturalistic observation with poetic light effects. Executed in 1873 during his time in Karlsruhe, the painting depicts a quiet rural road shortly after a rainstorm. A horse-drawn cart piled high with hay moves slowly down the puddled road, accompanied by a woman balancing a bundle on her head. The trees lining the road are bare and evenly spaced, forming a rhythmic sequence across the horizon. The landscape is flat, expansive, and rendered with restrained tonal transitions that draw the viewer into the calm, humid air of the countryside.

The real subject of the painting, however, is the light. Sinding captures the last gleam of daylight breaking through the clouds, casting golden tones across the sky and reflecting brilliantly in the wet gravel road. The rain has left the path glistening, and its puddles become luminous mirrors of the sky above. The reflections in the water strips of light and colour broken by darkened mud and tracks are rendered with particular care. This contrast between the fading sky and the gleaming ground creates a striking sense of depth and atmosphere, imbuing the scene with both immediacy and stillness. The handling of paint in these reflected surfaces suggests an artist acutely sensitive to the visual and emotional properties of light.

The composition is carefully constructed. The tall trees, silhouetted against the sky, form vertical intervals that lead the eye toward the central action: the hay cart and the figures moving slowly through the lane. Though small in scale, these figures give the scene a lived-in authenticity, tying the natural setting to the quiet labour of rural life. The woman with the bundle on her head is a typical figure in Sinding’s work, representing dignity and endurance. The presence of humans and animals in an otherwise subdued setting serves to anchor the landscape in narrative, a quality that recurs throughout Sinding’s oeuvre.

Painted during his period of study in Germany, this work reflects both technical training and personal observation. Sinding studied landscape painting in Karlsruhe, where he was influenced by the academic tradition of detailed naturalism, as well as by the emerging interest in integrating figures into landscape composition. The German environment, its villages and woodlands, provided him with a new visual vocabulary, distinct from the mountainous terrain of his native Norway. In this painting, the setting is unmistakably Central European, and the inscription of “Karlsruhe” situates the work geographically and artistically within that context.

While Sinding would later become known for his dramatic portrayals of Norwegian coastal and mountain scenes, Nach dem Regen reveals the quieter, contemplative dimension of his early practice. It is not the sublime but the familiar that commands attention here, the softness of a road after rain, the fading warmth of dusk, and the gentle motion of labourers returning home. The painting reveals an artist not only concerned with the grandeur of nature but also with its subtle rhythms and transitions. Light, moisture, and movement converge to form a mood that is both tender and observational.

Nach dem Regen stands as a significant record of Sinding’s early engagement with genre-infused landscape painting. It marks a moment in which his sensitivity to light and atmosphere found form in a modest yet richly evocative scene of post-rain rural life. As such, it is a key piece for understanding the broader trajectory of his career and the formation of his mature style.