The model tries to keep warm.

Painted in 1903, this intimate work finds Valdemar Irminger in the middle of his career transition from Realism toward a warmer Romanticism. The title itself tells a small, human story: a model, likely a young woman or child, caught between the demands of posing and the simple physical need to stay warm. Irminger was deeply attuned to the vulnerability of his subjects, particularly children and figures in interior settings, and that sensitivity almost certainly shapes how he frames this moment. Rather than treating the model as an object of artistic study, the title nudges us to see her as a person with her own discomforts and interior life.

Irminger spent years painting at the children's hospital at Refsnæs, where he developed a reputation for capturing quiet, unguarded moments with honesty and warmth. By 1903 he was an established presence at the Charlottenborg exhibitions and had long since moved away from strict academic portraiture. This painting, with its suggestive title and presumably domestic or studio setting, fits neatly into that body of work that finds dignity and tenderness in ordinary, fleeting situations. The year is also notable because it falls just before Irminger joined the Academy's school for women as a teacher, a role that would have placed him in regular contact with exactly this kind of working arrangement.