For examination, please contact the staff in Lyngby.

Exhibited: The Nivaagaard Collection, “Venskabsportrætter fra Rom”, 2016, Cat. No. 52, mentioned p. 51, ill. p. 52.

Provenance: Circolo Scandinavo / Skandinavisk Forening i Rom (Inv. No. AI 38a).

“I am infinitely looking forward to this escape out into the world” (Letter to Johannes Flintoe, June 10, 1836). This is what Marstrand wrote before setting off on his first study trip to Italy in 1836. While many Scandinavian painters were preoccupied with painting and copying antiquity, Marstrand focused on painting the life around him. He did not want to cultivate the past, but the present, or as he humbly wrote, “the lesser, but by no means insignificant daily life with all its joys and worries that are so important to us humans” (Letter to Edvard Collin, September 26, 1837).

And the depictions of Italian folk life were anything but insignificant. Marstrand’s motifs, which celebrated Italian life with vibrant impressions and interpersonal relationships, were very popular among the Copenhagen bourgeoisie. Marstrand made a total of four trips to Italy, where he painted several of his popular motifs, but he also drew hundreds of sketches to recall his observations upon returning to Denmark for commissions from his clients.

This present watercolor, painted by an unknown artist, is undated, making it difficult to determine which of his four trips to Italy the portrait is from. In the portrayal of Marstrand, we see him with an attentive and curious gaze directed straight at the viewer.