Offered by Galerie de Frise
REQUEST INFORMATION
Christian Mølsted
(1862 Dragør - 1930 Dragør)
View of Dragør harbor
Oil on canvas
H. 39.5 cm; L. 59.5 cm
Signed and dated lower right, 1914
The son of a fisherman, Mølsted was helped financially by a relative to complete his studies. After a spell in engineering, he entered the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, under the tutelage of the great painters of the day (F. Vermehren, J. Exner, C. Bloch). He began exhibiting at Charlottenborg in 1884, after stays in Paris and London, where he discovered the new artistic waves.
After graduating from the Academy in 1885, he specialized as a marine painter. He embarked on several ships, painting landscapes as well as historical scenes. In fact, it was these scenes that made his name, as he painted large-scale compositions depicting the famous battles of the great Danish captains, between waves and cannonade, immersion and fire. The atmospheres recreated are the key to his compositions, sometimes misty, sometimes opaque with cannon smoke, or clear as crystal.
Our painting is a superb light-filled composition, painted in the artist's home port of Dragør. The bright summer day unfurls its light tones, contrasted by the wooden extension of the building, partly in shadow. This relationship between rustic architecture and linear seascape is a feat that only northern painters know how to express.
