Exhibited: The Nivaagaard Collection, “Venskabsportrætter fra Rom”, 2016, Cat. No. 30, mentioned p. 52, ill. p. 51.

Provenance: Circolo Scandinavo / Skandinavisk Forening i Rom (Inv. No. AI 12).

Accompanied by his friend and fellow art colleague Julius Friedlænder (1810–1861), Edvard Lehmann went on a two-year educational trip to Italy. When they arrived in Rome in 1843, they were welcomed by their Danish artist colleagues, such as the painters Constantin Hansen (1804–1880) and Peter Raadsig (1806–1886) and the sculptor Peter Petersen (1810–1892).

In Rome, Lehmann practised the genre painting, while at home in Copenhagen, he was more into portraits by orders from the bourgouisie of Copenhagen. Lehmann was very observant and oriented to detail, and he was able to quickly grasp a situation and depict it. His technical abilities and eye for detail were in particularly evident in his drawings made with pen or coal. In the present self-portrait that is the case, where the combination of soft and hard pencil strokes realistically gives his hair a gloss and shine.

The self-portrait is signed and dated Kjøbenhavn (Copenhagen) 1846 with the dedication “Til mine Venner i Rom!” (To my friends in Rome!) and was probably made for the above mentioned artist colleagues as a memory of Lehmann after he left Rome in 1844.