Asnæs Skov, Bay at Kalundborg Fjord (1839): Art, History and Details

Asnæs Skov, Bay at Kalundborg Fjord (1839) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Johan Thomas Lundbye (Danish, 1818–1848).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Johan Thomas Lundbye belonged to the youngest generation of artists working during Denmark’s Golden Age, a period of unprecedented creative activity. This drawing depicts a wooded area on a narrow bay near the town where the artist grew up. Lundbye worked outdoors, directly from nature, aiming to create a work that conveyed his experience of nature. With exacting precision, he conveyed the scene’s solitude and featured a large dolmen, meant to allude to the region’s ancient past.

Object facts

• Title: Asnæs Skov, Bay at Kalundborg Fjord
• Date: 1839
• Creator attribution: Johan Thomas Lundbye (Danish, 1818–1848)
• Culture: Denmark
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: Pen and black ink and gray and brown ink washes with arched framing line in pen and black ink, bordered in pink watercolor on modern cream laid paper
• Dimensions: Support: 26 x 37.9 cm (10 1/4 x 14 15/16 in.); Matted: 36.2 x 48.9 cm (14 1/4 x 19 1/4 in.); Image: 19.1 x 30 cm (7 1/2 x 11 13/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - Misc. Countries
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 2022.87

A detail from the museum

Copenhagen’s Kunstforeningen, an exhibition society for contemporary art, purchased this drawing from Lundbye shortly after its creation—a practice meant to extend the organization’s support of artists.

Collection credit

Alma Kroeger Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Arbejder af Johan Thomas Lundbye: Udstillede I Kunstforeningen I København. Exh. Cat. Copenhagen: Kunstforeningen, 1893
• Madsen, Karl. Johan Thomas Lundbye, 1818–1848. Copenhagen: Kunstforeningen, 1895
• Fortegnelse over Kunstforeningens Samling af tegninger og akvareller. Copenhagen: V. Winkel & Magnussen, 1933

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.