The Artist: Müller aspired to be a history painter, that is, to specialize in a genre not generally associated with Danish Golden Age painting. His influential teacher, Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg (1783–1853), himself a pupil of Jacques Louis David, did produce history paintings, but these lack the simple grace and charm of his portraits, landscapes, and genre scenes. The present work, which falls into the last category, is absolutely characteristic of its time and place. When it was painted, Müller was an aspiring pupil of Eckersberg’s. By and large, none of Eckersberg’s followers thrived outside the “minor” genres mentioned above. Müller’s place within this group is generally invoked by means of two quotes. Julie Eckersberg, the painter’s daughter, later reflected, “When Father was still a young man, it was his greatest pleasure to spend time with his pupils, with whom he had the best relations. However, it was probably Købke, Rørbye, Küchler, Adam Müller, who were dearest to his heart.”[1] On March 21, 1844, upon Müller’s death at the age of 32, Eckersberg wrote in his diary, “At 9 o'clock this morning, the body of my deceased and beloved Adam Möller [sic] was brought to the grave at Assistens Cemetery.”[2]
The Painting: The setting of this intimately scaled interior view is an enfilade of rooms in the sculpture galleries of Charlottenborg Palace, Copenhagen, seat of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art. When it was painted, in 1830, the Academy’s plaster cast collection represented the vast majority of the sculpture to be seen in Copenhagen. The function of the casts was to provide students like Müller, who first enrolled at the Academy in 1821, with models from antiquity as the basis for learning to draw. On September 27, 1825, Eckersberg noted in his diary, “Young Adam Möller [sic] began to draw.”[3] Müller, who was eighteen or nineteen when he produced the present work, remained under Eckersberg’s tutelage until 1836.
The first room is dominated by casts of the downcast bust of
Jupiter Otricoli (Roman copy after fourth century B.C. Greek original in the Vatican Museums) and, immediately beyond, the standing figure of
Isis (second century Roman original in the Capitoline Museum, Rome). The latter is faintly depicted on the drawing tablet leaning against the stool opposite, to the left of the doorway. A bottle stands on the floor before the tablet and an overturned tophat sits on the stool.
The second room, considerably brighter than the first, is animated by a single male youth depicted from behind, identifiable by his red frock coat as a custodian; he looks toward the room’s light source, a window outside the fictive space of the picture. The accessories in the foreground of the first room may belong to him or to another, unseen figure, perhaps the artist responsible for the drawing on the tablet, which may be a reference to Müller himself. The overdoor in the second room is the relief
Hector’s Body Surrounded by His Mourning Family (1826–27), by Herman Wilhelm Bissen (1798–1868), a pupil of the leading Danish sculptor, Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770–1844).
This second doorway permits a glimpse of a third room, as dark as the first, affording a limited view of yet more sculpture, including three figures from the Temple of Aphaia, Aegina, which had been restored in Rome in 1818–19 by Thorvaldsen (see Zahle 2004). Thorvaldsen was the most famous Dane of his time, but he actually lived in Rome between 1797 and 1838. Though he was absent from Copenhagen and few works by him could be seen there, his pedagogical influence was as considerable as Eckerseberg’s in the capital.
The Painting in Context: The subject of a sculpture gallery was popular among Müller’s contemporaries. Examples include Hans Ditlev Christian Martens’s
The Hall of Antiquities in Charlottenborg Palace (1824, Thorvaldsens Museum, Copenhagen), Johan Vilhelm Gertner’s
Thorvalden’s Atelier at Charlottenborg (1836, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen), and Julius Exner’s
Plaster Cast Collection in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen (1843, Statens Museum). The closest connection to the present work, however, is with Christen Købke, another pupil of Eckersberg’s, one year Müller’s elder, who also exhibited a
View of the Plaster Cast Collection at Charlottenborg Palace (see fig. 1 above). He painted it in the same year as Müller’s and presented it for the first time in the same exhibition at the Kunstforeningen (Art Society) in Copenhagen.
The Kunstforeningen had been founded in 1825 to promote Danish art. Among the founders were Johan Christian Fick (1788–1864), Danish High Commissioner of War, who was also a collector and auctioneer. Fick was a friend of Eckersberg’s, another founder. The Kunstforeningen held its first exhibition in 1828, and it is easy to imagine Eckersberg encouraging Müller and Købke to submit works that would showcase their achievements in painting. The Society had decided that “... the artists who sold their work to the Kunstforeningen were obliged to carry out a drawing or etching of this work by their own hand.”[4] Fortuitously, the
ricordo Müller produced is inscribed with critical information about the painting: “A. Müller del. 1830 / Partie af Antiksalen paa Charlottenborg.— / 4/11 1830 tilfaldet Overkrigscomissaer Fick” (Hall of Antiques at Charlottenborg. — 4 November 1830 to War Commissioner Fick).[5]
As a characterful interior of personal resonance to the artist who painted it, this work belongs to a category of paintings inaugurated earlier in the century by François Marius Granet, notably with
Choir of the Capuchin Church in Rome (The Met,
80.5.2), and explored by artists all over Europe thereafter, ranging from Adolph Menzel’s
Artist's Sitting Room in Ritterstrasse (The Met,
2009.64) to Vilhelm Hammershøi’s
Moonlight, Strandgade 30 (The Met,
2012.203).
For a description of the artist’s procedure in painting this scene, see under Technical Notes.
Asher Miller 2019
[1] Julie Eckersberg,
Optegnelser om hendes fader C. W. Eckersberg, introduction by Emil Hannover, Copenhagen, 1917, p. 35; trans. in Bruun Rasmussen 2017, p. 20, under no. 4 (see References).
[2] C. W. Eckersberg,
Dagbøger, edited and with an introduction by Villads Villadsen, Copenhagen, 2009, vol. 2, p. 1008; trans. in Bruun Rasmussen 2017, p. 18, under no. 3 (see Provenance).
[3] Eckersberg 2009, vol. 1, p. 199; trans. in Bruun Rasmussen 2017, p. 18, under no. 3 (see Provenance).
[4]
Kunstforeningen i København: Dens Historie og Virksomhed fra dens Stiftelse til 1863 1864, p. 9.
[5] On the Kunstforeningen drawings, see
Fortegnelse over Kunstforeningens Samling af Tegninger og Akvareller, Winkel & Magnussen, Copenhagen, sale no. 142, October 19, 1933. Müller’s
ricordo was either one of two drawings included under no. 649 or one of six under no. 650; it is illustrated in Bruun Rasmussen 2017 (see References).