LITERATURE: Gerd Woll: Edvard Munch Prints from 1896, exhibition catalogue Munch-museet 1996.

Edvard Munch painted the first version of The Sick Child in 1886.

One of Munch’s very first drypoints was a copy of the painting, with a landscape added below the motif. (See cat.no. 5). But in the course of the year 1896 he not only produced a new version of the painting – a small etching, its focus entirely on the head of the child, also saw the light of day then; nor must we forget the magnificent lithograph, which he printed in a considerable variety of colours. …But it is hardly correct to see “The Sick Child” simply as a reminiscence of the death of his sister Sophie. It represents the poor health of the entire Munch family, and it is, moreover, an incredibly good portrait of tuberculosis as such, of the scourge that consumption was. The pale skin and delicate features of the model were decisive for the picture, and Munch himself suggested a broader interpretation:“-It was at pillow-time. The time of the sick-bed, bedtime and blanket-time, all right. But I must maintain that none of these painters are likely to have experienced the last cry of pain uttered by their model to the extent that I knew from the experience of the sick child. For I was not alone there, all those who were dear to me … I myself, and all those dear to me, from my mother down, have sat in that same chair and longed for the sun.” P. 24.