Exhibited: The Nivaagaard Collection, “Venskabsportrætter fra Rom”, 2016, Cat. No. 43, mentioned p. 64, ill. p. 63.

Provenance: Circolo Scandinavo / Skandinavisk Forening i Rom (Inv. No. A 29).

The present drawing is a preliminary study for the oil painting “Johan Thomas Lundbye” (1846) located at The Museum of National History at Frederiksborg Castle (Inv. No. 1324).

At the age of just fourteen, Johan Thomas Lundbye began receiving drawing lessons from the painter Johan Ludvig Lund (1777–1867) and shortly after he began studying at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. At the Academy, Lundbye specialised in landscape painting, and following instructions from his teacher, the art historian Niels Laurits Høyen (1798–1870), he focused on highlighting national characteristics in his depictions of the Danish landscape. Worried about weakening Lundbye's ability to portray the beauty of Denmark, Høyen had advised against a journey abroad. But despite Høyen's reluctance, Lundbye set off across Europe to Rome in 1845, after receiving the Academy's travel grant.

In Rome, Lundbye was welcomed by his friends and artist colleagues Jens Adolf Jerichau (1816–1883) and Thorald Læssøe (1816–1878), and the three friends shared accomodation here. The relationship between Lundbye and the other two gradually worsened during the stay and following a confrontation with both Jerichau and Læssøe, Lundbye decided to move out. To this, Lundbye noted in his journal that the Danish artists in Rome were “with a very few expections all a terrible horde” (“Venskabsportrætter fra Rom”, p. 64). One of the exceptions was the friend Wilhelm Marstrand, with whom Lundbye spent quite some time with in Rome. In his travelogues, Lundbye writes about how he explored areas around Rome together with Marstrand and the couple Michael (1802–1881) and Sofie Frederikke Raffenberg (1806–1889).

In the present portrait of Lundbye made by Marstrand in Rome, Marstrand has depected Lundbye wearing a Roman hat. Birgitte von Folsach writes about the portrait (painting) (in Danish): “Here the depiction is more momumental and serious, although it is also friendship portrait. Lundbye has grown a full beard and wears a type of hat that many of the travellers favored. The brown-eyed gaze is not focused, but distant, as if he is somewhere else in his mind” (Birgitte von Folsach, "Tæt på – Wilhelm Marstrands portrætter” in the exhibition catalogue “Wilhelm Marstrand. Den store fortæller”, 2020, p. 106).

It was no secret that Lundbye's time in Italy was characterised by homesickness and longing for Denmark, whereas Marstrand's encounter with Italy and especially Rome gave rise to great inspiration, and it was from Italy he became a major supplier of alluring, whimsical and often amusing depictions of Italian public life.