The masterful “Fishergirl” can be seen as a breakthrough work by Carl Wilhelmson. The subject was painted in Fiskebäckskil in summer 1894 when the artist was visiting home from Paris. According to the artist’s biographer, Axel L. Romdahl, this was the point at which Wilhelmson “came of age as an artist. […] Here there is no doubt. Calmly and assuredly he devotes all his technical expertise, acquired through humble, unstinting labour, to replicating the intimate subject.”
Apparently Wilhelmson himself was satisfied with the painting, as is shown by the letter (dated 18.9.1894) that he wrote to his friend and artist colleague Johan Ericson just before returning to Paris in the autumn:
“I have painted [...] this summer [...], now before I travel I will send two of them to the Art Association, an interior and a girl in a boat in evening light. It will be good to hear what you think of them, I think they are better than the ones I sent last year...”
Axel L. Romdahl writes that “there is major progress in expertise” in “‘Fishergirl’ signed in 1895” and continues his description:
“A skiff is rowed across the bay towards the Eastern shore […] over the evening-shining water by a very young girl, wearing a fine headscarf, Sunday blouse and freshly ironed apron. [...] The model, the artist’s young sister, is depicted with great fineness of expression. She has sat for her brother in a boat by the jetty below their mother’s house with the Eastern shore and the reflecting bay behind her. The landscape is shimmering beautifully. Strong local colour stands out in the edge of her neckerchief.”