Comment:
The motif is taken from the rear side of the Storting (Parliament), as it looked before the annex facing Akersgata was erected in 1958. By studying old photographs we have arrived at a probable dating. A heavy stone wall was built approximately where the figures are standing, somewhere between 1911 and 1914. The lamp in the drawing is missing in photographs from the 1880s and 90s, but beginning in 1905 both the lamp and the tree are present – and the tree also has the correct height in relation to the drawing. Other photographs from 1905 also show crowds assembled on this spot. It’s possible that it was a place of assembly for people waiting to hear the Storting’s decision regarding the dissolution of the Union with Sweden. In the years preceding and after 1905 Munch was seldom in Kristiania, but in spring 1905 he may have stayed here before travelling on to Åsgårdstrand.