Ivar Arosenius stages a wry, theatrical “triumph” in a cool, blue-green twilight: Venus—pale, buoyant, and improbably elevated—glides into view like a carnival apparition, attended by a loose procession of onlookers, masqueraders, and half-sketched figures. The setting is disarmingly ordinary—a house with a lit balcony, tall trees framing the central axis—so that myth enters everyday life as performance, rumour, and spectacle.

The sheet is constructed from an airy charcoal scaffolding over which Arosenius lays transparent watercolour washes and selective, opaque gouache accents. Many figures remain as ghostly outlines, as if the pageant is still forming in the artist’s imagination; elsewhere, decisive touches (the top-hatted gentleman, the bright white dress, the little dog trotting below) anchor the narrative.

Crucially, the inscription självporträtt points not to a single likeness but to a double presence. Arosenius appears as the brown-hatted figure moving within the crowd just behind the “princess” in white, and again on the balcony—set apart, observing—where his wife Eva and daughter Lillan register the private domestic sphere against which this public fantasy unfolds. The result is a deft, personal satire: the artist is simultaneously a participant and a witness, caught between street-theatre, desire and the quiet, watchful reality of home.