File:Peder Severin Krøyer - Marie Krøyer og Hugo Alfvén stående ved en båd på stranden. Studie - 1903.jpg

From the auction notes: The present painting is a study for one of Peder Severin Krøyer's most famous works “Sankt Hans-blus på Skagen strand” (Midsummer Eve bonfire on Skagen's beach), dated 1906, with the dimensions 150×257 cm (deposited at The Art Museums of Skagen (DEP5)). Peder Severin Krøyer's idea of portraying his friends from Skagen around a bonfire at Midsummer’s Eve arose in the early 1890s. After several drafts and sketches, including the present one, Krøyer completed the painting “Sankt Hans-blus på Skagen strand” in 1906. It was to be his last major work. It was quite a tour de force for Krøyer to finish the large painting. A similar study from 1903 with the same motif of Marie Krøyer and Hugo Alfvén standing by a boat on the beach (H. Chr. Christensen, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of P. S. Krøyer (HCC), 1923, no. 727) was sold at Bruun Rasmussen auction 486, 1986 no. 1. In the same year, Krøyer executed another larger sketch of the entire scene on the beach with almost all the people around the bonfire present: “St. Hansblus på Skagens strand" (HCC no. 725, 48×79 cm, sold at Bruun Rasmussen auction 870, 2017 no. 27), but WITHOUT Hugo Alfvén and Marie Krøyer, since they were not present that evening. They only came to Skagen later in the summer that year, where Krøyer could then make his sketches. Hence it was pure fiction on Krøyer's part to include them in the finished painting. He must have done so because, for better or for worse, they were a part of Krøyer's life and of the Skagen life. Even if in 1906, the separation from Marie and the upcoming divorce was a fact. See "Other versions".