The Slotskirken of Christiansborg, Copenhagen (c. 1850s): Art, History and Details

The Slotskirken of Christiansborg, Copenhagen (c. 1850s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Heinrich Hansen (Danish, 1821–1890).

The work and its context

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

Among the many important neoclassical buildings erected in Copenhagen during the 1800s was the Slotskirke or royal chapel, completed in 1826. Heinrich Hansen painted this sober, quiet view of the chapel's interior, carefully rendering its delicate shadows and patches of sunlight. Probably inspired by 17th-century Dutch paintings of church interiors, the artist accurately portrayed many of the building's features. The angels in the pendentives (the triangular areas beneath the circular dome) were carved by the great Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen (1768-1884).

Object facts

• Title: The Slotskirken of Christiansborg, Copenhagen
• Date: c. 1850s
• Creator attribution: Heinrich Hansen (Danish, 1821–1890)
• Culture: Denmark
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on fabric
• Dimensions: Framed: 48.5 x 44 x 2.5 cm (19 1/8 x 17 5/16 x 1 in.); Unframed: 35.4 x 31.4 cm (13 15/16 x 12 3/8 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1995.66

Collection credit

Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cleveland Museum of Art, “The Cleveland Museum of Art Acquires Major Works,” December 20, 1995, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.
• Argencourt, Louise d', and Roger Diederen. Catalogue of Paintings. Pt. 4. European Paintings of the 19th Century. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1974.

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.