Year 1826 (1826) Artist Wilhelm Bendz | Medium oil on canvas Created 1826 | |
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Dimensions 98 cm × 85 cm (39 in × 33 in) Location Statens Museum for Kunst, København Website www.thorvaldsensmuseum.dk/samlingerne/vaerk/B255 Similar The Artist's Mother Ane Hedvig Br, Amalienborg Square - Copenhagen, In the garden door The, Summer evening on Skagen's, Jason with the Golden Fleece | ||
A young artist (Ditlev Blunck) considers a sketch in a mirror is a painting by Wilhelm Bendz from 1826; it is one in the series of the Danish Golden Age portraits of artists.
Contents
Work's title
The work title is a young artist (Ditlev Blunck) considers a sketch in a mirror. The painting shows the young artist, Ditlev Blunck, who has taken a break to examine a sketch for a portrait painting of George Valtin Sonne, which is in the process of portraying his brother, engraver, Carl Edvard Sonne, by holding it up in front of a mirror to see if the composition works.
Genesis
The painting was made in 1826 at this time was Wilhelm Bendz was preoccupied artists' new role, as they no longer were considered craftsmen but as intellectuals, artists in the modern sense. He painted in the 1820s a series of portraits of artists at work. Here it is Bendz's fellow student Ditlev Blunck, who is in the process of painting a portrait of the painter Jørgen Sonne.
Reason
The painting shows a time when painters regarded themselves as seriously working artists. The image of painter Ditlev Blunck, standing in a packed room surrounded by his tools, paintbox, palette and easel and a skull and a sketchpad, signals that this work is serious, and the thorough study necessary before the execution of the painting.