1861-1933. Peter Ilsted was on of a group of Scandinavian artists, among them Carl Holøe and Vilhelm Hammershøi, working in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century who were known for paintings of interiors. Their work was imbued with a strong seventeenth century Dutch influence in the portrayal of figures placed in an enclosed space, concentrating on a specific activity, as if unaware of the painter's intrusion. However, it is the eighteenth century French painter, Chardin, best known for his still lifes, who was perhaps the most influential. In his figurative paintings Chardin had developed the technique of reducing interior scenes to their barest essentials by paring down ornamental details and by placing a greater emphasis on space and composition.

Ilsted was born in 1861 on the island of Falster in Denmark. His formal artistic training began at the Academy of Fine Arts in 1878 where, after a period spent traveling in Europe and North Africa, he received the Gold Medal for a painting of Cupid and Psyche in 1890. It would be wrong to view this period of Nordic painting as stylistically cohesive: for although their chosen subjects were similar, the works of Ilsted and his brother-in-law Hammershøi are quite different. Hammershøi's pictorial austerity contrasts with Ilsted's visual sentimentality in their respective scenes of contemporary life. Ilsted was in fact gradually influenced by Hammershøi's work, illustrated by work undergoing a transition away from Tissot-like compositions, towards less crowded and more geometrical scenes.