Offerscene

1772–1777

Sergel and Füssli: a turn towards Romanticism

In the company of the Swedish sculptor Johan Tobias Sergel and the painter Johann Heinrich Füssli, Abildgaard began to move away from academic classicism and came to love Shakespeare, Homer and Ossian. Themes from Greek and Norse mythology placed him at the forefront of Nordic Romanticism.

1772–1777 · Virkested

Rome

June – December 1777

Home by way of Paris, hoping for a professorship

In June 1777 Abildgaard left Rome, hoping to become a professor at the Academy in Copenhagen. He stopped in Paris on the way and reached Denmark in December.

1778

Professor at the Academy of Art

Soon after joining the Academy Abildgaard was appointed to a professorship, teaching mythology and anatomy as well as neoclassical painting. His pupils included Asmus Jacob Carstens, the sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen and the painters Johan Ludvig Lund and Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg.

c. 1780

The commission for the Knights’ Hall at Christiansborg

As royal history painter Abildgaard received a prestigious and lucrative commission for a monumental history of Denmark to fill the Knights’ Hall of Christiansborg Palace. The allegorical and mythological imagery glorified the government, while his teacher Mandelberg supplied the room’s decorations.

1781

Marries Nancy Oxholm; a son is born

Abildgaard married Anna Marie “Nancy” Christiane Oxholm, who that same year bore him a son, Marcus Aurelius. Later, on discovering her affair with the court chamberlain Reinhard von Eppingen, he forced the pair to flee in disgrace across the Sound to Helsingborg in Sweden, and divorced.