The Hall of Antiquities at Charlottenborg Palace, Copenhagen

The Artist: Müller aspired to be a history painter, that is, to specialize in a genre not generally associated with Danish Golden Age painting. His influential teacher, Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg (1783–1853), himself a pupil of Jacques Louis David, did produce history paintings, but these lack the simple grace and charm of his portraits, landscapes, and genre scenes. The present work, which falls into the last category, is absolutely characteristic of its time and place. When it was painted, Müller was an aspiring pupil of Eckersberg’s. By and large, none of Eckersberg’s followers thrived outside the “minor” genres mentioned above. Müller’s place within this group is generally invoked by means of two quotes. Julie Eckersberg, the painter’s daughter, later reflected, “When Father was still a young man, it was his greatest pleasure to spend time with his pupils, with whom he had the best relations. However, it was probably Købke, Rørbye, Küchler, Adam Müller, who were dearest to his heart.”[1] On March 21, 1844, upon Müller’s death at the age of 32, Eckersberg wrote in his diary, “At 9 o'clock this morning, the body of my deceased and beloved Adam Möller [sic] was brought to the grave at Assistens Cemetery.”[2]

The Painting: The setting of this intimately scaled interior view is an enfilade of rooms in the sculpture galleries of Charlottenborg Palace, Copenhagen, seat of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art. When it was painted, in 1830, the Academy’s plaster cast collection represented the vast majority of the sculpture to be seen in Copenhagen. The function of the casts was to provide students like Müller, who first enrolled at the Academy in 1821, with models from antiquity as the basis for learning to draw. On September 27, 1825, Eckersberg noted in his diary, “Young Adam Möller [sic] began to draw.”[3] Müller, who was eighteen or nineteen when he produced the present work, remained under Eckersberg’s tutelage until 1836.

The first room is dominated by casts of the downcast bust of Jupiter Otricoli (Roman copy after fourth century B.C. Greek original in the Vatican Museums) and, immediately beyond, the standing figure of Isis (second century Roman original in the Capitoline Museum, Rome). The latter is faintly depicted on the drawing tablet leaning against the stool opposite, to the left of the doorway. A bottle stands on the floor before the tablet and an overturned tophat sits on the stool.

The second room, considerably brighter than the first, is animated by a single male youth depicted from behind, identifiable by his red frock coat as a custodian; he looks toward the room’s light source, a window outside the fictive space of the picture. The accessories in the foreground of the first room may belong to him or to another, unseen figure, perhaps the artist responsible for the drawing on the tablet, which may be a reference to Müller himself. The overdoor in the second room is the relief Hector’s Body Surrounded by His Mourning Family (1826–27), by Herman Wilhelm Bissen (1798–1868), a pupil of the leading Danish sculptor, Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770–1844).

This second doorway permits a glimpse of a third room, as dark as the first, affording a limited view of yet more sculpture, including three figures from the Temple of Aphaia, Aegina, which had been restored in Rome in 1818–19 by Thorvaldsen (see Zahle 2004). Thorvaldsen was the most famous Dane of his time, but he actually lived in Rome between 1797 and 1838. Though he was absent from Copenhagen and few works by him could be seen there, his pedagogical influence was as considerable as Eckerseberg’s in the capital.

The Painting in Context: The subject of a sculpture gallery was popular among Müller’s contemporaries. Examples include Hans Ditlev Christian Martens’s The Hall of Antiquities in Charlottenborg Palace (1824, Thorvaldsens Museum, Copenhagen), Johan Vilhelm Gertner’s Thorvalden’s Atelier at Charlottenborg (1836, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen), and Julius Exner’s Plaster Cast Collection in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen (1843, Statens Museum). The closest connection to the present work, however, is with Christen Købke, another pupil of Eckersberg’s, one year Müller’s elder, who also exhibited a View of the Plaster Cast Collection at Charlottenborg Palace (see fig. 1 above). He painted it in the same year as Müller’s and presented it for the first time in the same exhibition at the Kunstforeningen (Art Society) in Copenhagen.

The Kunstforeningen had been founded in 1825 to promote Danish art. Among the founders were Johan Christian Fick (1788–1864), Danish High Commissioner of War, who was also a collector and auctioneer. Fick was a friend of Eckersberg’s, another founder. The Kunstforeningen held its first exhibition in 1828, and it is easy to imagine Eckersberg encouraging Müller and Købke to submit works that would showcase their achievements in painting. The Society had decided that “... the artists who sold their work to the Kunstforeningen were obliged to carry out a drawing or etching of this work by their own hand.”[4] Fortuitously, the ricordo Müller produced is inscribed with critical information about the painting: “A. Müller del. 1830 / Partie af Antiksalen paa Charlottenborg.— / 4/11 1830 tilfaldet Overkrigscomissaer Fick” (Hall of Antiques at Charlottenborg. — 4 November 1830 to War Commissioner Fick).[5]

As a characterful interior of personal resonance to the artist who painted it, this work belongs to a category of paintings inaugurated earlier in the century by François Marius Granet, notably with Choir of the Capuchin Church in Rome (The Met, 80.5.2), and explored by artists all over Europe thereafter, ranging from Adolph Menzel’s Artist's Sitting Room in Ritterstrasse (The Met, 2009.64) to Vilhelm Hammershøi’s Moonlight, Strandgade 30 (The Met, 2012.203).

For a description of the artist’s procedure in painting this scene, see under Technical Notes.

Asher Miller 2019

[1] Julie Eckersberg, Optegnelser om hendes fader C. W. Eckersberg, introduction by Emil Hannover, Copenhagen, 1917, p. 35; trans. in Bruun Rasmussen 2017, p. 20, under no. 4 (see References).
[2] C. W. Eckersberg, Dagbøger, edited and with an introduction by Villads Villadsen, Copenhagen, 2009, vol. 2, p. 1008; trans. in Bruun Rasmussen 2017, p. 18, under no. 3 (see Provenance).
[3] Eckersberg 2009, vol. 1, p. 199; trans. in Bruun Rasmussen 2017, p. 18, under no. 3 (see Provenance).
[4]Kunstforeningen i København: Dens Historie og Virksomhed fra dens Stiftelse til 1863 1864, p. 9.
[5] On the Kunstforeningen drawings, see Fortegnelse over Kunstforeningens Samling af Tegninger og Akvareller, Winkel & Magnussen, Copenhagen, sale no. 142, October 19, 1933. Müller’s ricordo was either one of two drawings included under no. 649 or one of six under no. 650; it is illustrated in Bruun Rasmussen 2017 (see References).

The composition was initially drawn in graphite over a pale gray ground. This can be seen from the surface in thinly painted passages and in areas where the pale gray ground was used compositionally, for example, in the sculpture on the left side of the brightly lit interior gallery. Extensive underdrawing throughout is visible with infrared reflectography (see fig. 2 above). There is a bold, ruled line delineating the top of the composition, and there are some light, ruled lines in the plinth in the right foreground, the shelf over the doorway, and some of the architecture. Otherwise, the drawing is freehand and sketchy, with contours often indicated by multiple lines.

Subtle shifts between drawing and painting indicate that the artist kept an open mind to alternative possibilities as he worked. The head of the young man was initially drawn above its current location; it was then painted in the current location but turned away in lost profile, revealing that a key feature of this figure—that he looks out toward the light—was introduced once the artist had started painting. Another very small but telling change from the drawing to the painting is the line defining the bottom of the figure’s coattails. This was drawn a little above the painted location, angled upward at the side. In painting it, the artist lowered the coattails, placing them on the same horizontal line as the far wall of the gallery, thereby tightening the composition. Yet another change which reveals the artist’s attention to details in relation to the whole is that, as he painted, he shifted the door handle very slightly downward from its original drawn location.

Following underdrawing, the composition was further laid in with translucent brown tones, which remain visible in some areas as warm half-tones, for example, in the figure’s trousers and hair. After allowing the underpaint to dry, the painting was completed using more bodied, pigmented oil paint, wet into wet, possibly in a single session. The handling is precise but painterly, with low impasto in the highlights. Müller’s treatment of light is masterful, as exemplified by the sculptures on the left side of the middle room. They are the lightest elements in the painting, as well as the most strongly lit, owing to their placement with respect to the light emanating from the (unseen) window opposite. Indeed, the painting is suffused with layers of play between drawing, painting, and sculpture.

Pencil check-marks and pin-holes on the canvas’s tacking edges and paint surface, visible with close scrutiny in the overall image and the infrared reflectogram, point to the use of a grid, consisting of 8 cm squares, made with threads over the painting that would have been used to transfer the composition to the drawing that repeats the painting’s composition, or ricordo (see Catalogue Entry). The presence of this feature is consistent with the painting’s state overall; it is unlined and on its original stretcher (fig. 3), and it is likely that the frame is original to the picture. (Adapted from Charlotte Hale, Examination Report, May 2018, Department of European Paintings files.)

Kunstforeningen, Copenhagen (1830; bought from the artist; sold by lottery on November 4, 1830, to Fick); Johan Christian Fick, Copenhagen (from 1830); his brother-in-law, Benjamin Wolff, Denmark (until d. 1866); Wolff family, by descent (1866–2017; sale, Bruun Rasmussen, Copenhagen, November 28, 2017, no. 3, for 379,440 Danish krone to Didier Aaron); [Didier Aaron, Paris, 2017–18; sold to The Met]

Copenhagen. Kunstforeningen. 1830, no catalogue?

Lyngby. Sophienholm. "Akademiet og de Skønne Kunster," May 5–September 2, 1979, no. 201 (as "Interiør fra Akademiets afstøbningssamling," lent by Aage Wolff-Schnedorff).

Copenhagen. Kunstforeningen. "De Ukendte Guldaldermalere," March 6–April 18, 1982, no. 112 (lent by a private collection).

Copenhagen. Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi. "Spejlinger i gips," September 22–November 7, 2004, no. 05a (lent by a private collection).

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Beyond the Light: Identity and Place in Nineteenth-Century Danish Art," January 26–April 16, 2023, no. 24.

Los Angeles. J. Paul Getty Museum. "Beyond the Light: Identity and Place in Nineteenth-Century Danish Art," May 23–August 20, 2023, no. 24.

Kunstforeningen i Kjøbenhavn: Dens Historie og Virksomhed fra dens Stiftelse til 1863. Copenhagen, 1864, p. 130, no. 19, lists it among works in the lottery of November 4, 1830, as "Prospect af en Deel af Figursalen" (Partial View of the Hall of Statuary).

Akademiet og de Skønne Kunster. Ed. Stig Brøgger. Exh. cat., Sophienholm. Lyngby-Taarbæk, 1979, p. 181, no. 201, fig. 39, dates it 1830 and notes that Müller was a student at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art, sited at Charlottenborg Palace, at the time of its creation.

Charlotte Christensen and Kasper Monrad. De Ukendte Guldaldermalere. Exh. cat., Kunstforeningen. Copenhagen, 1982, p. 69, no. 112.

Sanne Houby-Nielsen. Inspiration i Gips. Exh. cat., Statens Museum for Kunst. Copenhagen, 1996, p. 30, lists a photocopy of it among works included in the exhibition; calls the painting "Interiør fra Akademiets Afstøbningssamling" and dates it 1830; notes that it is in private hands.

Jan Zahle in Spejlinger i gips. Exh. cat., Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi. Copenhagen, 2004, pp. 82, 86, 103, 106, 112, under nos. 09a and 09b, pp. 193, 196, 198, 202, no. 05a, fig. 12 (color), discusses both the painting and Müller's drawing after it.

Karin Kryger in Spejlinger i gips. Exh. cat., Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi. Copenhagen, 2004, p. 258.

Fine Art + Antiques. Bruun Rasmussen, Copenhagen. November 28, 2017, pp. 18–20, no. 3 and under no. 4, ill. (color), as "Partie af Antiksalen paa Charlottenborg" (Hall of Antiques at Charlottenborg) dates it 1830; states that the Kunstforeningen (Danish Art Society) purchased the picture to be disposed of in a lottery among its members and that it was sold to Fick; notes that the artist's drawing made after the painting in obligation to the Kunstforeningen was in the same sale but from a different collection; indicates that the drawing is dated 1830; provides information on previous owners.

Beyond the Light: Identity and Place in Nineteenth-Century Danish Art. Ed. Freyda Spira et al. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2023, p. 200, colorpl. 24.

Thomas Lederballe. "Between Order and Feeling: Drawing in Nineteenth-Century Danish Art." Beyond the Light: Identity and Place in Nineteenth-Century Danish Art. Ed. Freyda Spira et al. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2023, pp. 31-32, 208 n. 3, fig. 14 (color detail).