MOSCOW.- Art of the Danish Golden Age has in recent years been the subject of several major exhibitions abroad. Last year it was the national galleries in England and Scotland that marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of Christen Købke with a retrospective exhibition of the artist’s work mounted in collaboration with the National Gallery of Denmark. Now the Russian public is being given the chance of a more comprehensive introduction to this flourishing period during which Danish art acquired a character of its own.

Especially Thorvaldsen is a figure familiar to Russian art history. Among other things, he made a statue of Czar Alexander I and was commissioned to create various sculptures and portraits of Russian princes and counts. The Pushkin Museum in Moscow itself possesses a sculpture of Princess Barjatinskaja, which will be included in the exhibition.

Opening after a Royal State Visit
The exhibition “Danish Masters 1800-1850” in the Pushkin Museum will open on 6 September on the occasion of the State Visit to Russia by Her Majesty the Queen and has been arranged in close collaboration with Thorvaldsens Museum and the National Gallery of Denmark. The altogether 62 works by artists including Thorvaldsen, Eckersberg, Rørbye, Bendz, Skovgaard and Lundbye are arranged and presented according to subjects reflecting the most important groups of motif in the art of the Danish Golden Age. Queen Margrethe and Prince Henrik will be present at the opening of the exhibition, which will remain open until 6 November.

International Event
This collaboration between the Danish museums and the Pushkin Museum is the result of the Russian museum’s visit to Denmark during the spring of 2011, which was arranged by the Danish Arts Agency. The Russian interest in Thorvaldsen, Eckersberg and co., comes as a supplement to recent years’ exhibitions of Abildgaard, Eckersberg, Hammershøi, Willumsen and, most recently, Købke. Next summer will see Hammershøi as the subject of German interest when the exhibition “Hammershøi & Europe” opens in the Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung in Munich. This comprehensive exhibition will be shown beforehand at the National Gallery of Denmark between 4 February and 20 May 2012.