View of Frederiksborg Castle from the Northeast

Johan Christian Dahl

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Born in Bergen, Norway, then part of Denmark, Dahl studied in Copenhagen and remained in Denmark even after Norway was ceded to Sweden in 1814. The nationalist art historian Niels Laurits Høyen touted Dahl at the time as an important emerging artist whose works not only depicted a place but also spoke to Denmark’s national character. The massive Baroque Frederiksborg Castle was celebrated as an eternal monument of Denmark best seen in the evening, after dusk, as Dahl renders it here. Dahl visited Frederiksborg in 1814 and 1817, and this drawing, probably dating to the latter visit, honors Danish cultural heritage. Dahl’s view of the castle is from a small knoll situated at the top of a footpath in the gardens across the lake.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art