Provenance: Museum Curator and art historian Peter Hertz, his estate auction Bruun Rasmussen 226, 1968 no. 5, ill. p. 4.

The Temple of Apis in the Frederiksberg Gardens is a small classicist temple located on a hill northwest of Frederiksberg Palace. The temple was designed by Nicolai Abraham Abildgaard (1743–1809), who was Eckersberg's teacher at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. The temple was built in 1802–04 in connection with the conversion of the Frederiksberg Gardens from a baroque garden to an English-style romantic garden.

From Eckersberg's hand, two other drawings are known from the Frederiksberg Gardens, where the temple is included. Both can be found in the Royal Collection of Graphic Art at the National Gallery of Denmark with the title “Prospekt fra Frederiksberg have ved slottet og Apistemplet” (View from the Frederiksberg Gardens at the Palace and the Temple of Apis (Inv. No. KKSgb4235 and Inv. No. KKSgb4236).

The present drawing comes from Eckersberg's youth in Copenhagen, before he travelled to Paris in 1810 and later to Rome. During this period, he executed a large number of views of Copenhagen – a city which, at the beginning of the 19th century, was undergoing a major transformation and reconstruction, after events such as an extensive fire of 1795, and he focused especially on the parts of the city that had taken on a new look.

Peter Michael Hornung and Kasper Monrad write about Eckersberg's early depictions of Copenhagen in “C. W. Eckersberg – dansk malerkunsts fader” (C. W. Eckersberg – The Father of Danish Painting): ”The Copenhageners' pride in their city was the reason why they also wanted to see it in drawings. A new popular genre: the Copenhagen view became highly fashionable, and the young Eckersberg was one of the artists who was tasked with satisfying the demand. [...] In his drawings from Copenhagen, Eckersberg stayed within the ramparts, but in the most open and airy part of the city, and the motifs could be the Church of Holmen, the Stock Exchange, the now-disappeared bank and the Chancellery. […] Eckersberg also drew the Temple of Apis with Frederiksberg Castle in the background, the view from Langelinie towards Nyholm, a part of Kongens Nytorv (The King’s New Square) with the Main Guardhouse, and a part of Langebro with the so-called Druknehus (House of the Drowned). These early city views primarily have cultural and historical value. Neatly and soberly, the selected parts illustrate the Copenhagen that was being built under Frederik the 6th. As portraits of architecture, these works point towards the far more significant views that Eckersberg would create in Rome. There was the difference, however, that in Copenhagen he worked on commission or in anticipation of additional grants. In Rome it was his own interest in monuments and views that motivated him.” (Peter Michael Hornung & Kasper Monrad, "C. W. Eckersberg – dansk malerkunsts fader” (C. W. Eckersberg - The Father of Danish Painting), the publishing house Palle Fogtdal, 2005, pp. 29–31).

Décor figures that bring life to the motif, such as the couple in the foreground in the present drawing, were often included in Eckersberg's early city views.