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View from the Battery toward the City
About the Artwork
Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg is known for initiating Danish painting’s Golden Age—a period of cultural efflorescence during the first half of the 19th century. Marine subjects were among the artist’s favorite, and the primary focus of his work beginning in the 1820s. Dating from this period, this drawing depicts Russian ships viewed from a fortress in Copenhagen’s harbor. In his journal, Eckersberg described making the trip to see the fleet with friends and waiting for the waters to become calm enough for sailing. To convey this experience, he juxtaposed precise perspective of the landscape with expressively rendered clouds.
Inscriptions
signed and dated, at lower right: Eckersberg fec. 1836; inscribed on verso: Eckersberg 7 Sept. 1836; perspective indications in graphite across lower border at 4 cm intervals; vertical line through center
Provenance
1836-1853: Estate of the artist [1785-1853], Copenhagen, Denmark 1854: (his sale, Copenhagen, January 1854, no. 375) ?-2015: Private collection, Denmark November 24, 2015: (sale, Bruun Rasmussen, Copenhagen, November 24, 2015, no. 61) ?-2020: (Le Claire Kunst, Hamburg, Germany, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) 2020-: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg (Danish, 1783–1853)
- Date
- 1836
- Medium
- graphite, pen and black and gray ink, and brush and gray wash on wove paper
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 18.5 x 31.5 cm (7 5/16 x 12 3/8 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund
- Accession no.
- 2020.225
More by Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg in museum collections
Relais, Avenue des Champs-Élysées, Paris (recto); Scene from the Life of Odysseus (verso)
Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg1812 · Drawing
A Section of the Via Sacra, Rome (The Church of Saints Cosmas and Damian)
Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersbergca. 1814–15 · Painting
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00011173
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