LITERATURE: Halvor Fosli: Kristianiabohemen. Byen, miljøet, menneska (Kristiania-bohemians. The city, the environment, the people), Oslo 1994.
Gerd Woll: Edvard Munch - Complete Paintings, London 2009.
Gerd Woll: Edvard Munch – The complete graphic Works, Oslo 2012.
Wikipedia on the poet, author and critic Helge Rode.

Helge Rode (1870-1937) was a Danish poet, and the son of Margrethe Rode (née Lehmann), who later married the Norwegian journalist Erik Vullum. She brought her two sons Ove Rode (later editor of the Danish newspaper «Politiken») and Helge Rode to Norway. Woll 2012, under cat.no. 62, p. 89.

It was in 1879, after her husband’s and the boys’ father’s death, the mother travelled with her sons to Norway. Helge Rode spent his youth in Norway. He was first cousin of the brothers Gunnar and Inge Heiberg, whose full names were respectively Gunnar Edvard Rode Heiberg and Inge Valdemar (Rode) Heiberg. Their mother was born Rode. Gunnar Heiberg is an infamous name in the circle around the Kristiania-bohemians, or at least he appears to have become infamous for Edvard Munch, and Inge was a genuine bohemian in the inner circle around Hans Jæger.

Under cat.no. 823 Woll refers to several portraits, including the above mentioned, of Helge Rode by Edvard Munch:

The portrait of Helge Rode was painted during Munch’s stay at Dr. Jacobson’s clinic in Copenhagen. They were old friends, and Munch had previously drawn a pastel portrait of him in 1891 (cat.no. 254), and a drypoint from 1895 (Woll 62). In 1908 he also portrayed him in a lithograph (Woll 310) that comes very close to the painting, and he painted a full length portrait of him the same year (cat.no. 824). Woll 2009, p. 806.