This early 20th-century oil painting by Danish artist Adolf Heinrich Hansen (1859-1925) depicts a beautifully decorated room within a grand manor house. Hansen was an academy-trained painter of buildings, cityscapes, animals and interiors.
As Summer gives way to Autumn, nordic light cascades through an open window across palatial gilt furnishings in the ornate Rococo taste. Illuminated blooms in pink, white and violet emerge from a decorative vase. It’s a sumptuous ensemble of bourgeois fineries.
Born in Copenhagen, Hansen was initially taught by his father, Heinrich Hansen, a distinguished architectural painter responsible for numerous high-profile commissions. His father’s work included decorating the burial chapel of King Christian IV and aiding with restoration projects at various castles. He was also a professor of perspective at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.
As a boy, he would’ve been educated in the basics of precise draughtsmanship, with an emphasis on foreshortening and the treatment of light effects. This served as the foundation of his impressive career and he followed dutifully in his father’s footsteps.
Following additional tuition at CF Andersen's sketching school, Hansen enrolled at the Academy and soon debuted, in 1885, at Denmark’s leading show, the Charlottenborg Spring Exhibition. Two years later, he too became a teacher of perspective - quite an achievement at 28 years old.
His interiors are not only beautifully rendered, they’re also a celebration of craft. It’s evident that he was enamoured with displays of ostentation, particularly those which echoed the 18th-century Rococo period. It’s interesting that in 1889, he depicted a room at Rosenborg Castle where his father had earlier undertaken various projects.
His trips to Italy, including Rome in around 1890, were surely a feast for the eyes.
Adolf Heinrich Hansen is represented in numerous public collections including the Aarhus Kunstmuseum.
Signed in the lower right and held within a later frame.
Learn more about Adolf Heinrich-Hansen in our directory.
Medium: Oil on canvas
Overall size: 25” x 26” / 64cm x 66cm
Year of creation: c. 1920
Provenance: Private collection, Denmark.
Condition: Cleaned. Frame in excellent condition.
Artist’s auction maximum: £10,168 for ‘Interior of a Chateau, Denmark’, Oil on canvas, Sotheby's, The Bill Blass Collection, New York, 2003 (lot 252).
Our reference: BRV1852
