Exhibited: The Nivaagaard Collection, “Venskabsportrætter fra Rom”, 2016, Cat. No. 23, mentioned p. 40–42, ill. p. 42.

Provenance: Circolo Scandinavo / Skandinavisk Forening i Rom (Inv. No. AI 31).

In 1847, the Danish architect Laurits Albert Winstrup received the The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art's large travel scholarship and travelled over a 4-year period to Germany, Austria, Italy, Greece, Turkey, England and France. He arrived in Rome in December 1847 and immediately sought out the company of his compatriots at Caffé Greco. He describes in his travel journal how he in the following days, among other things, went around looking for accommodation together with Frølich and here meets the rest of the 'artist colony', among others Wilhelm Marstrand (1810–1873), Albert Küchler (1803–1886), Ernst Meyer (1797–1861) (see cat. no. 102), Jens Adolf Jerichau (1816–1883), Thorald Læssøe (1816–1878), Harald Conradsen (1817–1905), Thorald Brendstrup (1812–1883) (see cat. no. 93) and many more. Winstrup quickly became a permanent and valued part of the circle of friends in Rome.

The architect Harald Conrad Stilling (1815–1891) writes in his travel journal from April 1851 about a very pleasant evening among the artists on a trip to the Alban Hills (in Danish): “... and over a bottle of the famous Lacrymæ Christi, which I drank for the first time, we sat cheerfully and chatted until bedtime, when Winstrup and I had one of the usual enormously large and high beds to share together, Frølich and Steenberg a similar one in another room...” (“Venskabsportrætter fra Rom”, p. 42).

After his long stay abroad, Winstrup left Rome in 1851 to become the City Clerk of Works in Flensburg.

See also Lorenz Frølich's portrait of Harald Conradsen, also from Naples 1849, cat. no. 109.