Exhibited: The Nivaagaard Collection, “Venskabsportrætter fra Rom”, 2016, Cat. No. 47, mentioned p. 15 and pp. 64–66, ill. p. 65.

Provenance: Circolo Scandinavo / Skandinavisk Forening i Rom (Inv. No. A 30).

Ernst Meyer studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen in the years 1812–1820, where in his last years he was greatly influenced by Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg (1783–1853), who became a professor at the Academy in 1818. In 1820, Meyer travelled to Munich, where he studied history painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in the years 1820–1824.

The present self-portrait was executed in Rome in 1830 and clearly reflects the extent to which Meyer was inspired during his time in Munich by the German Nazarenes and the circle around the painter Peter von Cornelius (1783–1867) and still was in 1830.

The Nazarenes were a group of romantic artists from Germany founded in the early 19th century, who sought to revive spirituality and sincerity in art in contrast to the otherwise prevailing French academic neoclassicism. The Nazarenes sought inspiration from artists from the late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, and they sought a simple and uniform external appearance, including long straight hair and a beret.

As can be seen in the present self-portrait, Ernst Meyer also let his hair grow long during his stay in Munich and has depicted himself with the romantic artist's favourite beret and with a very serious and heartfelt expression in his large expressive eyes.

In 1824, Meyer travelled with his friend the sculptor Herman Wilhelm Bissen (1798–1868) on to Italy, where he settled in Rome in the years 1824–1841 and where he became a very central figure in the Danish-German artist circle around the sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770–1844) and the artistic life, as it unfolded in and around the caffé Greco and the osteria La Gensola, as is known from Ditlev Blunck's (1798–1853) famous painting from 1837, where Ernst Meyer sits in the circle of the Golden Age painters around Thorvaldsen (Thorvaldsen's Museum Inv. No. B199). Ernst Meyer was known for his great helpfulness, his humor and cheerful disposition.

It is interesting to see the difference in appearance between the self-conscious artist in the present self-portrait from 1830 and the relaxed man of life, elegantly dressed and with short curly hair, half-beard, glasses and a cigar in hand in Blunck's painting from La Gensola from 1837 as well as the elderly gentleman in the drawn portrait by Frølich from 1847 in the present collection (see cat. no. 108).