Home Online catalogues True to Nature. Open-air Painting 1780-1870 123. Anton Melbye Copenhagen 1818 – 1875 Paris Skyrim (Kongsberg, Norway), 1846 Initially an apprentice shipbuilder, Melbye attended the Academy in Copenhagen between 1838-39, while simultaneously taking private lessons from Eckersberg. He would go on to specialize in marine painting, achieving international recognition with naval scenes characterised by dramatic effects of light, weather and atmosphere. He sailed the North and Baltic seas, eventually travelling as far as Morocco and Turkey. According to an inscription in the still-wet paint, this study was executed in Skyrim, Norway, on 10 August 1846. The evocative power and mysterious qualities of the mist in the Norwegian mountaintops, still covered in snow in high summer, would have appealed to his Romantic sensibilities. The following year, the artist moved to Paris, where he was influenced by Corot and became a teacher of Camille Pissarro.
Initially an apprentice shipbuilder, Melbye attended the Academy in Copenhagen between 1838-39, while simultaneously taking private lessons from Eckersberg. He would go on to specialize in marine painting, achieving international recognition with naval scenes characterised by dramatic effects of light, weather and atmosphere. He sailed the North and Baltic seas, eventually travelling as far as Morocco and Turkey. According to an inscription in the still-wet paint, this study was executed in Skyrim, Norway, on 10 August 1846. The evocative power and mysterious qualities of the mist in the Norwegian mountaintops, still covered in snow in high summer, would have appealed to his Romantic sensibilities. The following year, the artist moved to Paris, where he was influenced by Corot and became a teacher of Camille Pissarro.