Carl Bloch – Denmark’s Greatest 19th-Century Artist

The Hirschsprung Collection has added another piece of Danish cultural heritage to its collection with Carl Bloch’s A Young Sailor from 1874, acquired with support from the New Carlsberg Foundation. Modest in size though it may be, the painting is rich in artistic quality. Ask anyone in the 19th century, and Carl Bloch would likely have been named Denmark’s greatest artist.

Carl Bloch (1834–1890) was one of Denmark’s most successful artists in the second half of the 19th century. His monumental painting The Liberation of Prometheus was exhibited at Charlottenborg in 1864 and interpreted as a response to Denmark’s defeat by Prussia earlier that year. Grown men were moved to tears before the painting, while thousands queued from Charlottenborg far out into Kongens Nytorv.

From that moment on, Carl Bloch was a superstar in Denmark. He received major commissions, became a professor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and was appointed Councillor of State, one of the highest honours available to someone outside the nobility.

And the painting of Prometheus? It has since been lost, possibly disappearing in Greece during the Greek Civil War of 1946–1949. But that is another story.

Carl Bloch played an important role in the development of Heinrich (1836–1908) and Pauline Hirschsprung’s (1845–1912) private art collection. Their collection eventually became a public museum that continues to delight and surprise visitors today.

Bloch’s large and, at the time, expensive painting Fishermen’s Families Awaiting the Return of Their Men as a Storm Approaches. The West Coast of Jutland from 1858 was the first major work of art purchased by the Hirschsprung family. Acquired in 1869, it whetted their appetite for collecting and marked the true beginning of the many acquisitions that followed. They went on to purchase several more paintings by Bloch.

As Denmark’s most highly regarded visual artist, Bloch was important not only to the Hirschsprungs, but also to several other Jewish families who supported Danish artists and built art collections of their own.

Today, The Hirschsprung Collection presents the history of Danish art from the 19th century to the early 20th century like an open picture book. Carl Bloch has a natural place in this story, yet his reputation has suffered for many years. Since his fame reached its height in the 1880s, he has gradually faded from public awareness.

This reflects changing ideas about artistic quality and the development of art. In many ways, P.S. Krøyer, whose work is richly represented at The Hirschsprung Collection, exemplifies this shift in taste. In the long term, Krøyer’s style—known as Naturalism—came to be valued more highly than Bloch’s exceptionally precise and meticulously finished paintings.

In some respects, this small painting from 1874 is typical of Carl Bloch. It depicts a contemporary subject: a sailor with a cigarette, a spyglass and a sou’wester. Yet the work is also subtly steeped in art history.

The exceptionally refined and precise surface owes something to the material on which Bloch painted. Rather than canvas, he used a copper panel, avoiding the uneven texture of the weave and achieving a remarkably smooth finish. Bloch loved to draw inspiration from art history, particularly 17th-century Dutch painting and the artists from the city of Leiden, south of Amsterdam, known as the Leiden fijnschilders, or fine painters. At the National Gallery of Denmark today, visitors can encounter an artist such as Gerrit Dou (1613–1675), whose meticulous technique resembles Bloch’s—or rather, the other way around.

A Young Sailor would have taken many hours to complete. Bloch worked with extremely fine brushes and devoted immense patience to the painting. Each layer of colour had to dry for days or even weeks before the next could be applied. The result is a work of extraordinary technical skill.

As a character study, it ranks among Bloch’s finest. The young man feels strikingly present: nonchalant, self-assured and vividly alive. The painting has a powerful sensory quality, with a wealth of details to discover—not to mention the unmistakable eroticism it also conveys.

A Young Sailor is a cabinet picture entirely in keeping with the spirit of the Hirschsprung family’s collection: a connoisseur’s work intended for quiet contemplation in intimate surroundings. This is precisely how The Hirschsprung Collection continues to present Danish art today.

The work was acquired with support from the New Carlsberg Foundation.

For several years, the Hirschsprung family lived directly below the Melchior family when both families resided on Højbro Plads. Other Jewish families with a keen interest in the cultural life of the period, including the Henriques and Trier families, lived nearby or across the square.

In 1866, their upstairs neighbour Moritz G. Melchior (1816–1884) commissioned one of Carl Bloch’s major works, In a Roman Osteria, now in the collection of the National Gallery of Denmark. As Denmark’s most prominent Jewish businessman, Melchior was an influential figure. His wife, Dorothea, was herself a gifted networker and an important presence in Copenhagen society. Together, they undoubtedly inspired others. It seems clear that the Hirschsprungs, who were twenty years their junior, were encouraged to begin collecting—and particularly to collect works by Carl Bloch.

A major research project at The Hirschsprung Collection in 2022–2023 focused specifically on Danish, Swedish and other Nordic families of Jewish heritage who collected art and supported artists. Preliminary research had already revealed close networks of mutual exchange and inspiration between these families and the artists. Carl Bloch was an important figure within these networks.

A Young Sailor from 1874 remained in the hands of Jewish collectors for many years. It was acquired by Martin Henriques in 1874 and later passed to a certain “financier L. Levy”, whose identity has yet to be established.

Henriques’s ownership also creates a direct connection to the Hirschsprung family. Heinrich Hirschsprung’s brother, the art collector Bernhard Hirschsprung (1834–1909), and his wife, Emma (1843–1910), lived for many years in the same building as Henriques.

For a museum engaged in researching its Jewish heritage, this provenance offers a fascinating story—and provides another compelling reason for the acquisition.