Interest in Danish art from the first half of the 1800s has grown in recent years, and the art scene in contemporary Denmark is now regarded as one of the most important in Europe. Several of the world's leading museums, including the Louvre in Paris, the National Gallery in London, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, have acquired works from the period which is usually referred to as the Danish Golden Age. This exhibition is one of the most ambitious analyses of the period’s art to be undertaken in many years.

A wider interpretation

The Danish Gold Age began during the Napoleonic wars, the events of which included the British bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807. Artistically speaking, Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg's innovative views from Rome (circa 1815) heralded the advent of this era of art history.

In art historiography, 1848 is traditionally regarded as the end of the Danish Golden Age. It was in this year that the three leading artists of the era died. The same year saw the introduction of constitutional rule in Denmark, and war broke out between Denmark and the German-speaking population of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. However, this exhibition offers a different and wider interpretation. The end of the epoch is instead traced to 1864, when Denmark’s defeat in the war against Prussia marked both an artistic and a mental break with the harmonious, cohesive culture of the Danish Golden Age. This interpretation indicates a broader artistic scope and leaves room for more artists than just Eckersberg and his most prominent students. In addition, this perspective makes it possible to study the artists who continued to create long after 1850.

A joint production

The exhibition's commissioners are Peter Nørgaard Larsen and Annette Rosenvold Hvidt from the National Gallery of Denmark in Copenhagen and Magnus Olausson and Carl-Johan Olsson from Nationalmuseum in Stockholm. It is based on a concept developed by the late chief curator Kasper Monrad and is the result of collaboration between two Nordic national galleries. This has opened the door for a new interpretation of the era, one which positions the Danish Golden Age within the context of international art of the 19th century. The works come from the collections of the National Gallery of Denmark, Nationalmuseum, several Danish and international museums, and private collections.