Our unique collection of drawings from 1800 are currently shown at the exhibition “Friendship Portraits from Rome” (Venskabsportætter fra Rom) at Nivaagaard Museum in Denmark. For the first time ever. The exhibition is built on the portrait genre Freundschaftsbild, a well-known genre in Germany.

It seems that the Scandinavians were very inspired by the romantic period’s idea of close friendships between two men, especially two artists. This kind of spiritual friendship was also worshiped by the Scandinavian artists in Rome, and the portraits bare witness of these friendships. The drawing of a young H.C. Andersen made by Albert Küchler in 1835 is a fine example. Andersen admired Küchler and wrote poems for him. The portrait by Carl Bloch of the Swedish sculptor Frithiof Kjellberg is another example of an important friendship.

The exhibition catalogue tells us many new anecdotes about how the Scandinavian artists were a closely knitted group, working and living together, even sharing workshops. Carl Bloch has a portrait of the Swedish sculptor Frithiof Kjellberg, who shared a workshop with the Danish sculptor Lauritz Prior, the Finnish sculptor Walter Runeberg and later also the Norwegian sculptor Brynjulf Berglien. Their atelier was named the “Scandinavian Academy” by their friends.

The exhibition is about friendship, and bare witness of the importance of friendship between artists. Our drawings are shown for the first time to the public and we are delighted and proud. We should like later on to show the exhibition in other Nordic countries and in Rome, and will work on that to happen. We are happy to say, that making friends between artists in Rome still goes on in Skandinavisk Forening, almost 200 years later than Küchler’s portrait of H.C. Andersen.