Karl Madsen, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of Johan Thomas Lundbye, 1949, no. 229, ill. p. 254, mentioned p. 256.

Exhibited: Københavns Rådhus (Copenhagen City Hall), “Raadhusudstillingen af Dansk Kunst til 1890”, 1901 no. 1192a. Kunstforeningen, “Malerier af Johan Thomas Lundbye (1818–1848)”, 1931 no. 99.

Provenance: Lawyer, politician (National Liberal) and county councillor Orla Lehmann. Mrs Louise Puggaard (1895). Mrs Klubien (1901). Doctor Immanuel Fenger. President of the Maritime and Commercial Court and co-founder of the Journal for the Judiciary L.N. Hvidt (1931). Bruun Rasmusen auction, 750, 2005, no. 1009, ill. p. 19.

During his stay abroad, Lundbye was constantly homesick. In 1847, he had happily and luckily returned to his “dear Denmark”, and he was not disappointed to see his fatherland again. He was eager to start painting again, and immediately went to Vognserup, which made him “heartfelt and completely happy”, and from there to Kalundborg to visit his mother, who looked after the family's elderly.

To P.C. Skovgaard, he wrote (in Danish): “Here I did not do much work, but the Fields by the Fjord and especially the Mill Hill had occupied me a great deal, from the latter place I have even thought of doing a painting, if not something very large, then at least a nice little friendly group with 4 mills, which could vividly remind one of an unforgettable little mill painting in Rome by Brueghel. - No one worried about me, I have not done any harm to the mood”. (Karl Madsen, “Johan Thomas Lundbye”, 1949, p. 253).

Lundbye's inspiration from the Dutch masters from the 17th century was highlighted in the exhibition “I lyset af Holland” at The National Gallery of Denmark, 2001. In the exhibition catalogue, Kasper Monrad describes Lundbye's windmill motifs (in Danish): “Lundbye's last Dutch-inspired manifestation was the painting Møllebakken ved Kalundborg from 1847 [...]. He worked with the motif over a longer period and tried out different solutions before giving the painting its final form. The motif - a sandy field road along a hilly terrain with mills - was fixed from the start, but for once he tried a portrait format in one of the two painted sketches. In the end, however, he chose the traditional, wide landscape format, but he [chose] not to fully retain the format from the other sketch. The composition is built on the same model as one of the most widespread types of Dutch landscapes, the dune landscape, where a diagonal road creates depth in the painting and brings the elements of the motif together into a whole. Lundbye has worked with exactly the same triangular composition that Jan van Goyen in particular worked with [...], and has, like him, let the lines of the road and the oblique demarcation of the hill crest and the vegetation meet in the distance. The main motif of the painting, the windmills, he has of course been able to see everywhere in the Danish countryside. But he may have had a significant incentive to choose the motif from one of the absolute masterpieces of Dutch art, Jacob van Ruisdael's The Windmill of Wijk bij Duurstede (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam).” (Kasper Monrad, “Den hollandske dimension i den danske guldalders landskabsmaleri” in the exhibition catalogue “I lyset af Holland”, The National Gallery of Denmark, 2001, pp. 61–62).

The portrait format mentioned in the above quote is the present painting. The final version was sold at Bruun Rasmussen auction 924, 2024, no. 10, ill. p. 17, and purchased by Museum Vestsjælland.