To mænd og en dame. Den ene mand holder et krus i hånden 1749 - 1790

Curator: Immediately, this drawing conveys such immediacy, doesn’t it? A captured moment, fleeting almost. Editor: Indeed. It feels more like a glimpse into someone’s sketchpad rather than a finished work. We're looking at "Two Men and a Lady. One Man Holding a Mug in His Hand", a pencil drawing by Erik Pauelsen, dating from between 1749 and 1790. It is currently part of the collection at the SMK, the National Gallery of Denmark. Curator: The man holding the mug is especially compelling. The mug itself acts as a symbolic container for his actions. He appears to be a well-off character, his attire certainly speaks of some higher class or position within the period's socio-economic architecture. Do you think that contributes to the overall theme of a snapshot in time? Editor: Certainly, the class distinctions would have been very visually and socially significant at the time. That he’s holding a mug – a mundane object really – draws him into the everyday. The gesture humanises the subject. The question becomes who the man is and why Pauelsen was compelled to commit this image to paper. Was this drawn from life? What occasion drew these figures together in a way that the artist sought to document. The lack of clear, refined lines in his sketch make it seem less idealized or aspirational and more real in the immediacy it conveys. It asks as many questions as it answers. Curator: It’s the realism of genre-painting; yet I feel these characters represent more than just their time. There is a definite attempt at revealing some aspect of what they truly represent in the bigger narrative and tapestry of societal figures during the era that could translate well even today, wouldn’t you agree? Editor: Without a doubt, these men—with their ambiguous relationship to the woman, are caught in an interesting, eternal, almost primal tension, an insight into a universal story playing out over and over across ages. I wonder who they truly were in reality! Curator: Perhaps what is seen here really is nothing more than a passing encounter; perhaps everything they were has been committed on paper with these simple pencil strokes. What powerful memory contained within. Editor: Indeed, Pauelsen presents an insightful vignette, asking us to consider the everyday theater in lives both observed and reflected.