This portrait of Selma Lagerlöf was commissioned by Frithiof Hellberg, editor of Idun. When Lagerlöf, as the first woman, took her seat in the Swedish Academy in 1914, this portrait was printed on its cover. It is one of many friend and author portraits executed in the same style – with black chalk contours and light colouring with a sparing use of oil paint. Selma Lagerlöf and Carl Larsson liked each other – and she supported him following August Strindberg’s attack on him in A New Blue Book in 1908.