Ragnar Sandberg (1902-1972) is one of the leading figures of 20th-century Swedish art and his oil paintings command high prices today. Sandberg belonged to the so-called Gothenburg colorists. Through his sublime palette that fleetingly alternated between color expressionism and pale pastel tones, he created a unique position for himself among his contemporaries. At the end of the Second World War, Sandberg increasingly began to devote time to studies in the smaller format and became interested in the rhythm and regularity of forms. In 1947 he became a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts. In the same year he received the title of professor of drawing at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts, a position he maintained until 1949 when he was appointed professor of painting at the aforementioned institution.

"- In the suite of blue nubbe glass, Sandberg develops a sensitivity to the compressed still life format and a restraint in color that we have rarely seen in his production before. Gone are the experiments with complex color chords, taken from Bonnard's palette. Instead, the work develops with echoes of form and shifts in perspective. A number of small and large ovals together build up the triangular glass shapes. Light and dark create a dramatic chiaroscuro that in a Baroque still life and the painting's blue-black basic chord gives a feeling of a coloristic cleansing bath. Here, Sandberg's great interest in the rhythm of shadows also comes into its own in a less studied way than in many other paintings. He shows that good painting must be built on a belief in expressing oneself in image, independent of the ideological superstructure. Painting speaks to us without words."