Forest by Edvard Munch (1894)

Catalogue identity

The painting carries the title "Forest" and is attributed to Edvard Munch. It is dated 1894 and measures 59 cm in height by 94 cm in width, a distinctly horizontal format. The catalogue record does not offer a description of the depicted scene, so the identity of the object rests on these catalogue particulars rather than on any account of the image. The work belongs to KODE Art museums and composer homes and bears the accession number SS.00128, an identifier that attaches to this specific canvas rather than to another work of a similar name. The attribution to Munch and the 1894 date are the terms under which the object enters the catalogue; the date belongs to the making of the painting, not to its cataloguing. Because the source consulted is a Wikimedia Commons file page, the record is only partially consulted relative to the full scholarly literature, and the attribution and dating should be read as catalogue information rather than as conclusions resting on technical analysis.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d., Title line: Forest; Date line: 1894; Dimensions line; Accession number line)

The object is catalogued as number 279 in Woll's Edvard Munch: Complete Paintings: Catalogue Raisonné. That number is a separate act of identification from the dates and dimensions: it places the canvas within a systematic scholarly enumeration of Munch's paintings, so that references to this work in the literature can be resolved to the same physical object. A catalogue raisonné number is consequential precisely because Munch's output includes numerous related canvases and sketches; without such a number, titles and subjects alone would be insufficient to distinguish one work from another. The accession number SS.00128 at KODE performs a parallel function on the museum side, tying the canvas to institutional custody. These two numbers, one scholarly and one museological, together answer the question of which object is meant when the work is discussed.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d., References line; Accession number line; Title line: Forest)

Competing titles

A second title stands alongside the catalogue title. The file label describes the painting as "Sketch for 'Ashes'", while the object is titled "Forest". The supplied evidence does not reconcile the two names, and it supplies no description of the scene that would allow the relation between this canvas and the finished painting Ashes to be assessed. The disagreement is itself part of the object's documentary history: one name identifies the canvas by its own subject, the other by its relation to another, completed work. Neither the evidence nor the record states which title is formally authoritative at KODE, or how the file label came to be applied. The honest position is that both names are attested and the conflict remains open on the supplied record.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d., Filename and description; Title line: Forest; Date line: 1894)

Date and legal status

The 1894 date is corroborated independently of the credit line, since the source's supported claims include the date and dimensions along with the medium, collection and copyright status, and the record's annotations identify these as the particulars of the painting. The work is in the public domain because the author died in 1944, a fact that depends on the death date rather than on the painting's own date and therefore belongs to the legal history of the object rather than to its making. That a work of 1894 entered the public domain only by reason of Munch's death in 1944 is a reminder that the chronological life of an artwork extends well beyond the year inscribed on or assigned to it, through ownership, display and eventual copyright expiry.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d., Date line: 1894; Permission section; Title line: Forest)

Competing titles

The file label's designation of the canvas as a sketch for another painting raises the question of what category of object this is, but the supplied evidence stops short of answering it. A sketch normally denotes a working image made in the process of thinking toward a larger project, but that is a general understanding of the term, not a description of this canvas, and the record provides no observation of finish, brushwork or surface that would confirm or deny it. Likewise the title Forest, or Skogsinteriør in Norwegian, indicates a forest interior, but no evidence describes trees, light, ground or figures. The two titles thus point toward different readings of the same canvas, one thematic and one preparatory, and the record leaves the choice unresolved. What can be said with confidence is limited to identification: this is an oil painting attributed to Munch, dated 1894, of known dimensions and accession, held in Bergen.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d., Filename and description; Title line: Forest; Dimensions line; Accession number line)

Display and collection history

The object's institutional life after 1894 is documented in one respect: the painting was included in the exhibition "Kan hende er det vakkert. Kunstsamleren Rolf Stenersen" at KODE Art museums and composer homes, held from 24 February to 11 June 2023. That exhibition, framed around the collector Rolf Stenersen, places the canvas within a narrative of collecting and institutional display rather than solely within the history of Munch's own production. The evidence does not state when or how the work entered the collection, nor what role it played in the exhibition, so the display record establishes reception and visibility but not provenance. The gap is instructive: a work can be firmly catalogued, possess an accession number and appear in a recent exhibition while the record supplied here remains silent on its movement between the studio and the museum.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d., Accession number line; References line; Date line: 1894)

Identity and its limits

Interpretation

Taken together, the evidence establishes a small horizontal painting of 1894 attributed to Edvard Munch, listed as number 279 in Woll's catalogue raisonné and as SS.00128 in the collection of KODE Art museums and composer homes. It further establishes that the canvas is known by two conflicting names, Forest and Sketch for 'Ashes', and that the record does not adjudicate between them or describe the image. The interpretive point is that this object matters less for what the present record can assert about its subject than for what it demonstrates about how artworks are identified: through catalogue titles, raisonné numbers, accession numbers and exhibition histories, each of which frames the object differently. The absence of any account of the scene is therefore not a trivial omission but a real limit of the consulted record, and the identity of this canvas remains, on the supplied evidence, a catalogue identity rather than a visual one.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d., Title line: Forest; Date line: 1894; Dimensions line; Accession number line; Filename and description; References line; Permission section)

The painting is titled "Forest" and is attributed to Edvard Munch.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d.)

The painting is dated 1894.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d.)

The painting measures 59 cm in height and 94 cm in width.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d.)

The painting is oil on canvas.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d.)

The painting has the accession number SS.00128 at KODE Art museums and composer homes.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d.)

The file label describes the painting as "Sketch for 'Ashes'".(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d.)

The painting is number 279 in Woll's Edvard Munch: Complete Paintings: Catalogue Raisonné.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d.)

Identification and physical record

The canvas is catalogued as number 279 in Woll's Edvard Munch: Complete Paintings: Catalogue Raisonné and carries the accession number SS.00128 at KODE Art museums and composer homes. These two identifiers are not decorative: they bind the claims made here to one specific canvas rather than to another work with a similar title or to a related composition such as the finished Ashes. The painting is dated 1894, executed in oil on canvas, and measures 59 cm in height by 94 cm in width, so its proportions are wide and low rather than tall. It is attributed to Edvard Munch, and the record places it in the collection of KODE Art museums and composer homes in Bergen. Before any argument about meaning or function can be made, these facts establish which object is under discussion and where it now resides.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d., Permission section)

Two titles, one canvas

The identification of the work is secure, but its naming is not stable. The object title recorded for the painting is Forest, with the Norwegian variant Skogsinteriør, meaning forest interior. At the same time the source file for the object is named Sketch for Ashes, describing it as a sketch made in relation to Munch's finished painting Ashes. The supplied record offers no reconciliation of the two titles; it preserves the conflict rather than resolving it. This matters for how the object should be described, because a title can function as a later descriptive label rather than as an original name, and a working image can acquire a new title as its relation to a larger composition becomes clearer or as cataloguing conventions change. Both designations are part of the documented history of this canvas even though only one can serve as its formal title.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d., Permission section)

Date, series and the limits of the record

Interpretation

The date 1894 places the painting in the decade when Munch was developing the series he called the Frieze of Life, but the record supplied here does not tie this canvas to that series, nor does it describe what the painting depicts. There is no account of trees, light, figures or ground, and no reading of how this canvas relates to the finished Ashes. Any claim about Munch's intention for the picture, or about whether the forest functions as setting, mood or something else, would therefore exceed the evidence. The alternative title Sketch for Ashes indicates a working connection to a larger composition, which is consistent with what a sketch normally is, an image made in the process of thinking toward something else, but that is a general observation about sketches rather than a verified statement about this particular canvas.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d., Permission section)

Exhibition and circulation

The painting's later public life is documented through a single exhibition: it was included in "Kan hende er det vakkert. Kunstsamleren Rolf Stenersen" at KODE Art museums and composer homes, held from 24 February to 11 June 2023. That exhibition was concerned with the collector Rolf Stenersen, so the canvas appeared in a presentation organized around a collector's formation and taste rather than around a monographic account of Munch's career. The record also states that the work is in the public domain because the author died in 1944, which fixes the terminus of Munch's life and, with it, the legal and historical frame within which the painting is now circulated and reproduced. These two facts belong to different registers, one to exhibition history and one to rights status, but together they show how the object is currently administered and made available.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d., Permission section)

The work is in the public domain because the author died in 1944.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d.)

Documented Medium

The only material fact the supplied record states directly about the making of this canvas is its medium: the painting is oil on canvas. That single line is the entire documented basis for any discussion of its materials and technique, and it establishes the broad technical category into which the object falls rather than any detail of its construction. Nothing in the record describes a support beyond the canvas itself, such as a panel, nor does it describe a preparatory ground, a priming layer, a varnish, a stretcher or any other physical component. The oil medium line and the support are recorded together as one datum, and that datum should be treated as the limit of what the record documents about how the picture was physically made.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d., Medium line: oil on canvas)

The record does identify the object precisely, which matters because technical and material claims can only be attached to a specific canvas. It is catalogued as number 279 in Woll's Edvard Munch: Complete Paintings: Catalogue Raisonné and carries the accession number SS.00128 at KODE Art museums and composer homes, where it is held in the collection. A separate file label describes it as a sketch for Ashes, and the record also gives the title Forest with the Norwegian variant Skogsinteriør, which means forest interior. These identifiers and names are the contextual anchors for the medium line; they establish which object the oil-on-canvas statement refers to, not what the paint on it looks like.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d., Medium line: oil on canvas)

The date carried by the record is 1894, which places the canvas in the decade of Munch's Symbolist work and of the series he called the Frieze of Life. The record does not tie this canvas to that series, so the dating is a chronological fact about the object rather than evidence of its place in a program. The record also notes that the painting was included in the exhibition Kan hende er det vakkert. Kunstsamleren Rolf Stenersen at KODE Art museums and composer homes, 24 February to 11 June 2023. Neither the date nor the exhibition history supplies any information about pigment, surface, layer structure or handling, so they function here as the dating and display context for a canvas whose medium is documented but whose making is not described.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d., Medium line: oil on canvas)

The one term in the record that touches technique is the word sketch, which appears in the file label Sketch for 'Ashes'. The record does not explain what about this canvas makes the label appropriate, and it supplies no description of the image, no reading of how the canvas relates to the finished Ashes, and no statement about finish, resolution or working method. The title Forest and its Norwegian variant Skogsinteriør are also given without any description of trees, light, figures or ground. The label and the title therefore remain attributions of naming and function rather than technical findings, and they should not be converted into claims about brushwork, speed, layering or incompleteness on this specific canvas.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d., Medium line: oil on canvas)

Limits of the Technical Record

Interpretation

It is worth separating two kinds of statement that the evidence keeps distinct. The medium line, the dimensions of 59 cm by 94 cm, the date of 1894, the catalogue number 279 and the accession number SS.00128 are documented facts about the object. Any account of pigments, preparation, layer structure, tools or making technique would require physical examination or technical analysis, and the supplied record contains none of that. In its absence, the safe account of this canvas is a material one at the level of category: it is an oil painting on canvas, of a wide low format, made in 1894 and now held in Bergen. Conclusions beyond that level would be inference rather than record.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d., Medium line: oil on canvas)

Documented Exhibition History

The exhibition record supplies one documented showing for this canvas: it was included in "Kan hende er det vakkert. Kunstsamleren Rolf Stenersen," held at KODE Art museums and composer homes from 24 February to 11 June 2023. The title of that exhibition names Rolf Stenersen as the collector around whom the presentation was organized, and the venue is the same institution that holds the painting. The evidence for this showing consists of an exhibition history line in the Wikimedia Commons file record for the object, a source that also carries the painting's title, attribution, date, dimensions, medium, collection and accession number, so the exhibition entry arrives attached to the object's identity rather than as an independent catalogue notice in the supplied units.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d., Exhibition history line)

Because the only exhibition unit supplied for this section is the 2023 Stenersen exhibition entry, the account must distinguish between the exhibition history that the record establishes and any question of current display. The unit states that the painting was included in the KODE exhibition in 2023 and gives its opening and closing dates; it does not state where the painting is displayed now, nor does it describe installation, wall text, catalogue entries, plate numbers or page references for that showing. Those details are simply not present in the supplied evidence. What the unit does fix is the pairing of this canvas with an exhibition framed around Stenersen as a collector, at the institution that holds the work under the collection name KODE Art museums and composer homes. The exhibition therefore belongs to the object's documented afterlife of public presentation, but its scope in the evidence is a single dated venue and a single title, nothing more.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d., Exhibition history line)

The painting was included in the exhibition "Kan hende er det vakkert. Kunstsamleren Rolf Stenersen" at KODE Art museums and composer homes, 24 February to 11 June 2023.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d.)

Institutional identity and cataloguing

The painting is in the collection of KODE Art museums and composer homes, and the same record assigns it the accession number SS.00128. The accession number is the institutional handle that distinguishes this exact canvas from other works with similar or overlapping names, and it sits alongside a second identifier, number 279 in Woll's Edvard Munch: Complete Paintings: Catalogue Raisonné. Taken together, the collection line, the accession number and the catalogue raisonné number anchor the object to a single physical painting rather than to the title alone, which matters because the object carries more than one name in the surviving accounts. The source states that the work is in the public domain because the author died in 1944, a rights determination tied to Munch's death date rather than to the date of the painting itself.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d., Collection line)

The object title given in the record is "Forest," attributed to Edvard Munch and dated 1894, with the Norwegian variant Skogsinteriør, meaning forest interior. The record describes it as oil on canvas measuring 59 cm in height and 94 cm in width, a notably wide, low format whose proportions condition how anything inside the picture would be composed. The file label, however, describes the painting as "Sketch for 'Ashes'," pointing toward a finished painting by Munch rather than toward a forest subject. The supplied evidence does not reconcile the two names, and the record leaves that disagreement standing: both belong to the object's history even if only one can be its formal title. The same record establishes the medium as oil on canvas, so the material facts of paint and support are documented even though the imagery is not described.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d., Collection line)

Exhibition and reception

Fresh documentation of the object's public life comes from the exhibition "Kan hende er det vakkert. Kunstsamleren Rolf Stenersen," held at KODE Art museums and composer homes from 24 February to 11 June 2023. The record notes that the painting was included in that show, which concerns the collector Rolf Stenersen. This is a recent display context, distinct from the painting's making in 1894, and it shows the canvas circulating within an account of private collecting and its later institutional presentation. Because the record supplies the exhibition only as a fact of inclusion, it does not establish how the work was hung, what wall text accompanied it, or how curators resolved the competing titles in that setting. What the evidence does establish is that the painting was exhibited at KODE in 2023 in a collector-focused exhibition, and this is the only exhibition history the supplied unit records.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d., Collection line)

Interpretation

The evidence does not describe what the canvas depicts, and it offers no reading of how the object relates to Ashes as a finished work. The alternate title, "Sketch for 'Ashes'," therefore remains an unresolved designation rather than a documented relationship to a composition that scholars have explained here. Because the record provides no description of trees, light, figures or ground, the image itself cannot be reconstructed from the evidence, and the interpretation of the scene cannot be tested against any provided account of Ashes. What can be said is conditional and general: a sketch is typically a working image, made in the process of thinking toward something larger, but the supplied evidence does not confirm that the general category applies to this specific object in any documented way. This is a limit of the record, not a deficiency in the painting, and it is worth stating plainly so that the supported facts and the open questions are not confused.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d., Collection line)

The painting is in the collection of KODE Art museums and composer homes.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d.)

The object and its records

Interpretation

The object documented here is an oil on canvas dated 1894 and attributed to Edvard Munch, held in the collection of KODE Art museums and composer homes in Bergen under the accession number SS.00128. It measures 59 cm in height by 94 cm in width, which the source context describes as a modest scale for Munch rather than the dimensions of a primary masterpiece. The same source identifies it in Woll's Edvard Munch: Complete Paintings: Catalogue Raisonne as number 279, a catalogue number that fixes this exact canvas and distinguishes it from other works with similar or related names. The Norwegian variant of the object title, Skogsinteriør, translates as forest interior, which is the descriptive content the title itself carries; the supplied evidence does not describe the trees, light, figures or ground of the painting, so the account of what is depicted stops at the wide, low horizontal format implied by the recorded dimensions.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d.)

Two titles are attached to the canvas and they point in different directions. The object title is Forest, with the Norwegian variant Skogsinteriør, while the source file page itself is named Sketch for Ashes, and the file label describes the painting as a sketch for that finished work. The supplied record does not reconcile the two names, and both are part of the object's documented history even though only one can serve as its formal title. The record gives no description of what this canvas depicts and no reading of how it relates to Ashes, and it does not tie the painting to Munch's Frieze of Life series. Because the evidence does not establish the relationship between the sketch and the finished painting, the meaning of the forest here, whether setting, mood or something else, cannot be resolved from the supplied units.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d.)

Exhibition and public domain status

The exhibition record places the painting in a later context of reception and collecting. It was included in the exhibition Kan hende er det vakkert. Kunstsamleren Rolf Stenersen at KODE Art museums and composer homes, running from 24 February to 11 June 2023. That exhibition is the only display history supplied for the object, and it associates the canvas with the collector Rolf Stenersen rather than with a display organised around Munch's own Symbolist programme. The work is in the public domain because the author died in 1944, a status the source states directly and which permits the public-domain reproduction noted in the valuation material; that reproduction status is a property of the image rights and not a statement about the painting's market or aesthetic standing.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d.)

Valuation evidence and its limits

The only valuation evidence supplied is a model-generated working range dated 17 October 2026, which estimates US$300,000 to US$2,000,000 as a conservative working insurance band. The methodology behind that range rests on the confirmed context: an 1894 oil on canvas by the major Symbolist Edvard Munch, with catalogue raisonne number 279 and accession SS.00128, held in a Norwegian public museum collection. The modest scale for Munch, approximately 59 by 94 cm, together with the source's identification of the work as a sketch related to Ashes rather than a primary masterpiece, argues for a conservative band. The public-domain reproduction status, the museum collection context and the absence of any documented sale, auction result or appraisal data further support a broad, low-confidence range. The range is explicitly a working calculation for manual review only, not an official insurance value, appraisal, auction result or sale price, and it must be validated by a qualified appraiser before any insurance, loan, tax or fiduciary use. Its evidential weight therefore lies in what it reveals about the state of the record, namely that no documented transaction or appraisal data exists in the supplied material, rather than in any market figure it proposes.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d.)

What the evidence does and does not establish

Taken together, the units describe an object that can be named and placed precisely within Munch's production and a public Norwegian collection, but not explained in terms of its imagery or its relationship to the finished painting it is said to sketch. The catalogue number 279 and the accession number SS.00128 are the strongest identifiers, because they tie the title, the artist, the date, the medium and the collection to one specific canvas. The unresolved dual titling, the absence of any description of the picture's content, and the lack of documented sale or appraisal data all remain open. The 2023 Stenersen exhibition and the public-domain status established by Munch's death in 1944 are the two points at which the object's later history and its status as a reproducible image are documented. Within a larger history of material culture, the case is instructive precisely because it shows how much of an object's standing can rest on catalogue and collection records while the iconographic and commercial questions remain unaddressed by the evidence.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d.)

Working estimate

Calculated working insurance estimate, not a sale price: Estimated value: US$300K to US$2M Recorded date: Working calculation, generated 2026-10-17. Methodology: Conservative working insurance range derived from the confirmed context: an 1894 oil on canvas by Edvard Munch, a major Symbolist artist, with catalogue raisonne number 279 and accession SS.00128, held in a Norwegian public museum collection. The scale of approximately 59 by 94 cm is modest for Munch, and the source identifies the work as a sketch related to Ashes rather than a primary masterpiece, which argues for a conservative valuation band. The public-domain reproduction status, museum collection context, and lack of any documented sale or appraisal data further support a broad, low-confidence range suitable only for manual review, not for binding insurance placement. Qualification: This is a model-generated working range for manual review only. It is not an official insurance value, appraisal, auction result, or sale price. It is based on limited public source context and must be validated by a qualified appraiser before any insurance, loan, tax, or fiduciary use.(Wikimedia Commons: Ashes, n.d.)