The artist drew inspiration from the paintings of 17th-century Holland, especially a group of works then attributed to Peter de Hooch but now believed to be by Peter Janssens Elinga. Like the Dutch painter, he was preoccupied with near empty spaces and the effects of light from a window. The setting was Hammershøi's own apartment. He made particular play with open and closed doors to suggest a space beyond what the spectator can see directly. It is the elusiveness and sense of the mysterious which links Hammershøi to the international *Symbolist aesthetic. He also painted landscapes and the exteriors of buildings. These are bereft of any human presence, even in his depiction of what was in reality the busy thoroughfare running by Gentoffte Lake. The painter was as reserved in his life as in his art. When he died he was internationally famous, but after his death his work was largely forgotten until a revival of interest began in the 1980s. His brother Svend Hammershøi (1873–1948) was a painter and also a ceramicist. Further Reading F. Krämer et al., Hammershøi (2008)