A wild bunch. A winter day with snow at Ledhuset in Fændrikvangen, near Hillerød.

Painted in 1906, the same year Irminger began teaching at the Royal Danish Academy's school for women, this winter scene captures a lively group of children and animals at Ledhuset in Fændrikvangen, near Hillerød. The title's playful spirit, 'a wild bunch,' signals exactly what Irminger loved most: children caught in unguarded, energetic moments rather than posed formality. By this point in his career, Irminger had shifted away from the Realist style of his early work toward a warmer, more Romantic sensibility, and that shift feels present here in the soft, enveloping quality of the snow-covered landscape.

Irminger built his reputation painting children with what critics called 'revealing sensitivity,' most notably in his celebrated works at the Refsnæs children's hospital. This painting shares that same affectionate attention to how children actually behave, bundled up and tumbling through a cold Danish day. The setting near Hillerød, north of Copenhagen, gives the scene a recognizable regional character. Snow in Nordic painting of this era often does double duty, both as subject and as a softening agent that bathes figures in reflected light. Look for the way the pale winter sky and the white ground work together to flatten shadows and give the scene an almost glowing, gentle warmth despite the freezing temperature implied by the title.