Elisabeth Lødrup Bang, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of I. C. Dahl no. 52.

This painting is a classical example of Dahl's “Nordic landscapes” from his time in Denmark, where he stayed in the years 1811–1818. At this time Dahl was very inspired by the old baroque masters, which he studied in the different collections in Copenhagen - in particular in the Royal Chamber of Arts (later the National Gallery of Denmark). The term “Nordic landscape” covers an imaginary, but in Dahl's mind basic Norwegian landscape. Lødrup writes the following about the painting: “The contrapostal grouping of the features in the different picture planes derives from the baroque landscapes Dahl could study in the great collections in Copenhagen” (Marie Lødrup Bang, "Johan Christian Dahl 1788–1857, Oslo 1987, p. 47).

Provenance: Auction director Johan Christian Fick (1788–1864). The Danish art collector Benjamin Wolff (1790–1866), his descendants until today.

The two art collectors J. C. Fick and Benjamin Wolff were very good friends and knew I. C. Dahl personally. J. C. Fick was this painting's first owner and the brother-in-law and friend of Benjamin Wulff, the second owner of the painting. In 1825 Fick founded Kunstforeningen in Copenhagen in collaboration with among other the art historian N. L. Høyen, the architect G. F. Hetsch and the painters Eckersberg and J. P. Møller.

Benjamin Wolff expanded his fortune as a merchant in the East Indies in the years 1817 to 1828. Back in Denmark he purchased the manor Engelholm in 1830 and later Grevensvænge at Mogenstrup. In 1832 he married Juliane Louise Sneedorff.

I. C. Dahl visited Engelholm several times. Initially under the previous owner P. B. Petersen, and he stayed in the summer of 1814 at the manor. Dahl painted several works of the landscape around Engelholm including two now at the National Gallery of Denmark from respectively 1814 and 1816, and he improved his landscape paintings during this stay.

In 1844 Dahl returned to Engelholm now under the new owner Benjamin Wolff - the two have probably known each other since the youth - in Wolff's drawing collection is a pencil sketch of Liselund on Møn from about 1814. Wolff himself has inscribed the drawing (in Danish): “The first sketch is by I. C. Fick, the rest is by Dahl” (Claus M. Smidt, ”Tegnekunst på Nivaagaard”, 1983, p. 5–11).