Trollebotten

There are no known descriptions or photographs of this painting, but Astrup’s title indicates that this was a landscape painting of the Trollebotten area. This is a mountainous landscape that lies north of Ålhus in Jølster, and it belongs to a series of pictures Astrup painted during the summers of 1906 to 1908. The Trollebotten series depicts Lake Trollebottsvatnet and the jagged mountain Trollebottsegga. The most important of these is Trollebotten (K100), which includes concealed figures in the mountainside.

The painting “Troldbotten” was on sale at Astrup’s exhibition at Kunstnerforbundet (artists’ association) in 1911, where it was bought by Sigurd Astrup (1873–1949) for 300 kroner. The merchant Astrup was a second cousin of the artist, and he had previously bought the paintings Early Summer in Jølster (K170) and A Night in August, Jølster (K66) directly from Astrup. Whereas these two pictures were inherited by the family, the history of “Trollebotten” is unknown after 1911, since it was not part of the estate left by Sigurd Astrup.

According to Astrup, a painting with the same title (U054) was lost during the Bergen fire of 1916, but it is unclear whether this was Sigurd Astrup’s painting. Although he lived in Oslo, the merchant had business ties with Bergen through the company Astrup & Søn AS, which might explain a potential sale or loan of the work to Bergen.