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View of the Little Belt from Hindsgavl on Funen, B237

Explanation

  • The paintings View across Lillebælt from Hindsgavl on Funen and View across Lillebælt from a Hill hear Middelfart are of the same size and were conceived as companion pieces. They both take their motifs from the Funen grounds of the mansion of Hindsgavl, close to Juel’s birthplace of Gamborg. And in one sense both are about masters and servants. It is assumed that the pictures were commissioned by the owner of Hindsgavl, Christian Holger Adeler, about 1799, but that Juel simply never managed to finish them. Adeler was one of the liberal landowners whose efforts led to the end of serfdom in 1788, and the pictures can be seen as expressing the development of the relationship between peasants and landowners at the end of the 18th century. View across Lillebælt from Hindsgavl on Funen represents the old order, in which the peasant must be chastised in order to conform and the place in the sun is reserved for the lord of the manor and his family. View across Lillebælt from a Hill near Middelfart, on the other hand, represents the new order in which the sun shines on peasants and landowners alike. The first picture is symmetrical like the gardens of the absolute monarchs; nature is kept at a distance by a neat fence. The other is asymmetrical; the natural world and the cultivated landscape mingle, and the different social classes live in harmony with each other. The paintings have always been owned by artists. The engraver G. L. Lahde bought them at the auction of Juel’s effects in 1803, and in 1843 his daughter sold them to Thorvaldsen.

Motif / Theme