Exhibited: The Nivaagaard Collection, “Venskabsportrætter fra Rom”, 2016, Cat. No. 28, mentioned p. 50, ill. p. 48. Brigham Young University Museum of Art, “Lasting Impressions: Etchings and Drawings by Carl Bloch”, 2018.

Provenance: Circolo Scandinavo / Skandinavisk Forening i Rom (Inv. No. A II 8).

The two artists have been facing each other in the lamplight during the execution of the present portrait. It might seem like a situation where one would expect some intimacy, but Bloch was not an artist who formed many close friendships. Among his close friends was the writer Frederik Bøgh (1836–1882), the painter Anton Dorph (1831–1914), and the poet Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875). In a letter to Andersen, Bloch writes (in Danish): “Thank you, dear beloved Friend, for your Letter to me, but we do not address each other as 'You' unless we are alone, as we are now. Your ever-devoted Friend, Carl Bloch.”

Kølle and Carl Bloch knew each other from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. During their reunion in Rome, they portrayed each other, but they probably never discarded the formal address of 'De' for the informal 'du' as was the case with Bloch and Andersen as Bloch describes in the above letter. Nevertheless, Kølle has drawn a sympathetic portrait of an artist who, despite great recognition, was marked by doubt and periods of melancholy.