Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg - View through Three of theNorth-Western Arches of the Third Storey of the Coliseum in Rome[c.1815-16]

Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg - View through Three of the North-Western Arches of the Third Storey of the Coliseum in Rome [c.1815-16], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Eckersberg (1783 - 1853) began his open-air painting, previously unknown within Danish art, while in Rome, completing the painting on site. This gave him the opportunity to observe the scene more directly, and the rendition is characterised by great freshness and immediacy. He undoubtedly used binoculars to be able to faithfully reproduce the details in the background. 

With his art firmly anchored in representations of reality, Eckersberg laid down the foundations for the next three or four decades of Danish painting, thus helping to create the Golden Age of Danish art. Eckersberg was appointed professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 1818, giving his students the chance to study his Roman scenes at the residence provided for him at Charlottenborg.

Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg - Bella and Hanna [1820]

Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg - Bella and Hanna [1820], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

During the years around 1820, Eckersberg was busy painting portraits of the affluent citizens of Copenhagen. The artist’s greatest patron during his young years, the merchant Mendel Levin Nathanson, commissioned two large family portraits. n one of the two works he painted Nathanson’s two oldest daughters, Bella and Hanna, in a sparingly furnished drawing room with simple panelling and furniture, including a table bearing a parrot’s cage. The two girls are shown in uncompromising poses, one strictly frontal, the other strictly from the side, and as they look very much alike, it seems likely that the painter wished to create a variation on a theme; variations like those created by the famous Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen around the same time.

The parrot opens up the scene to symbolic readings. Due to their ability to imitate human voices parrots were often seen as symbols of good breeding, a suitable allusion for a picture of two young middle-class woman. At the same time, however, the caged bird can also be regarded as a metaphor for the two unmarried women’s sheltered situation while waiting, perhaps longing, to move out into real life.

Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg - Russian Ship of the Line Assow and a Frigate at Anchor in the Roads of Elsinore [1828]

Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg - Russian Ship of the Line Assow and a Frigate at Anchor in the Roads of Elsinore [1828], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Eckersberg had studied Russian ships of the line on two occasions before embarking on the painting of the Asow in 1828. Both times, however, his studies were made at Copenhagen, not Elsinore as shown in this picture. Thus, this painting is not a faithful reproduction of a single, specific scene; it is a presentation of what the ship would look like if viewed from a favourable position on the Oresund.

Eckersberg prepared the painting with great care. He borrowed plans of ships of the line from the Danish navy, and he painstakingly calculated the relative positions of the ships on the water. He also studied the light, wind, and other meteorological conditions before commencing work, taking extra care to paint the cloud formations as realistically as possible. After 1821 seascapes had become Eckersberg’s favourite subject. They allowed him to bring together his interest in nature, ships, and meteorology, and over the next three decades he had the opportunity to depict almost every conceivable type of ship in every marine situation imaginable.

Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg - View of the Forum in Rome [1814]

Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg - View of the Forum in Rome [1814], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.

This is one of the most famous views in Rome, looking along the Forum towards the Palazzo dei Senatorio on the Capitol. The three surviving columns of the Temple of Castor and Pollux frame the composition on the left; in the middle distance are the remains of the Temples of Saturn and Vespasian. In 1814 the Forum was still used as a field for grazing cattle and many prominent monuments (such as the Arch of Septimius Severus on the right) had yet to be fully excavated. 

Eckersberg was the most successful and influential painter in Denmark in the first half of the 19th century. After a three-year stay in Rome (1813-16) he returned to Copenhagen to become a professor at the Academy, a post he held until his death. During his long career he painted numerous portraits, landscapes and marine subjects, as well as a range of historical and mythological subjects.

[Oil on canvas, 32 x 41 cm]