Provenance: Wilhelm von Kaulbach (1805–1874). Hermann Kaulbach (1846–1909), son of the portrayed. Successive members of the Kaulbach family in Bavaria until 1999. Private collection Munich. In a letter to his fiancée, Marie Raffenberg, dated Munich, the 26th of August 1832, Bendz writes: “At the moment I am painting ... a life-size portrait of the historical painter Kaulbach ... I chose him, because he has an exceedingly handsome head, which of course will add greatly to the impression my painting will make ... I have painted him with a cloak and a pointed, broad-brimmed hat, like those the old painters used, and behind there is a sunset brilliantly painted by Morgenstern.” The silhouette in the background was identified as the mountains near Partenkirchen, which greatly impressed Bendz on his first trip to the Alps with Christian Morgenstern, a friend from the Copenhagen Academy. Bendz reported: “... three happy weeks, which I shall never forget until my dying day” The Hirschsprung Collection, “Et ungt kunstnerliv 1804–1832” exhibition catalogue, Copenhagen 1996, pp. 220 and 224). A few days after the above letter, Bendz left the Bavariancapital Munich for Rome but never arrived. He died in Vicenza, a mere 28 years of age. The artist's friend Wilhelm Kaulbach was to become the most famous and best paid German painter of his time. Bendz is considered to be one of the most skilful painters of the Danish Golden Age, especially within the art of portraiture. His last major work, discovered quite recently and offered here, was purposefully created to crown his art of portraiture. Large-sized, important paintings by Bendz are rarely offered. The last one, “The Waagepetersen Family”, now at the Statens Museum for Kunst (The Danish National Gallery), was sold in 1998 at Bruun Rasmussen for DKK 2,800,000.