“View from the area at Søllerød with spruces in the foreground” by Lise-Lott Barlas.

The artist has placed himself on a ridge overlooking a hilly landscape, which on the right side of the image descends towards a wide stream that cuts through a flat area. We are in the region of Søllerød, and the stream must be Mølleåen, which runs 25–30 kilometres from Furesøen on its way to its outlet in Øresund approximately halfway between the villages of Taarbæk in the south and Skodsborg in the north. Presumably it is the Swedish coast that can be seen on the far horizon.

In the middle of the foreground some young, slender spruces are growing, which have, so to speak, taken the place of honour in the painting. The spruce was not a native tree to Denmark such as ash, beech and oak, but introduced from abroad. This type of tree was therefore at the time a peculiar and interesting motif. Together with other trees and bushes on the right, the spruces form a natural fence towards the valley, while their tops unite the two halves of the painting, the landscape below and the slightly overcast sky, from which a faint sunlight penetrates through the pale blue openings in the clouds and illuminates the valley below on the right. The landscape is also characterized by dark colours, as are the spruces.

In the years 1826 to 1828 Petzholdt made about half a dozen paintings from the area at Søllerød. In 1826 the theologian Caspar Johannes Boye (1791–1853) was appointed vicar at Søllerød church, with whom Petzholdt was well acquainted. Boye had married Jonas Collin’s stepdaughter, Maria Birckner, in 1818. Like her sister, Johanne Birckner, Maria was half-sister to the children Jonas Collin had with Henriette Hornemann, and there was a strong connection between the Boye family and the Collin family as well as with Petzholdt.

The painting with the spruces was exhibited at Kunstforeningen's exhibition in 1985 with the title “Parti fra Søllerød” (View at Søllerød) as no. 12. At the same exhibition in 1985 you could see two more paintings from Søllerød by Petzholdt. No. 11 was a somewhat smaller painting with the same title as no. 12: “View at Søllerød”, which shows a forest floor with ferns under some trees, where only the lower part of the trunks is visible. This painting is today part of a private collection in New York and has just been exhibited at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York at the exhibition “Beyond the Light. Identity and Place in 19th century Danish Art” with the title ”Forest Floor“ Cat. No. 28. The third painting, no. 13 at Kunstforeningen's exhibition was ”Fire egetræer ved Søllerød" (Four Oak Trees at Søllerød). In the register of her book, “Søllerød - set med malerøjne” (Søllerød – Seen Through the Eyes of Painters) (1983), Laura Jacobsen mentions three more paintings by Petzholdt from the area at Søllerød: No. 0111 “Udsigt fra Højbjerg ved Søllerød” (View from Højbjerg near Søllerød), which was exhibited at Charlottenborg in 1828. No. 0115 “En sandgrav på Højbjerg i i Rude skov” (A Sand Pit at Højbjerg in Rude Forest), exhibited the following year at Charlottenborg, and the last no. 0149 again with the title “Ved Søllerød” (Near Søllerød) without a date, but with the measurements 34×42 cm. Unfortunately, the first two are without measurements, so they are not easy to identify.

When Petzholdt made this painting with the spruces, he was only 21–23 years old. It is a beautiful painting. This was also Henry Tuxen's opinion when he included it in his handwritten list of Petzholdt's works as No. 40.

Bruun Rasmussen is grateful to MA Lise-Lott Barlas for the above text about Fritz Petzholdt and the present painting.