Christian MØLSTED
(Dragør 1862 - Dragør 1930)
Coastal Scene at Rubjerg Knude, on Vendsyssel, Denmark
Sold
Watercolour and gouache, over a pencil underdrawing.
Signed and dated Chr: Mølsted. 1888. at the lower left.
Signed and inscribed Rubjergknude a Vendsyssel. / sildig Eftermittag. / Chr Molsted. / St: Anna Plads No.3. den 15/3 88. on the verso.
Further inscribed Chr Molsted. / St: Anna Plads No.3. and Rubjergknude a Vendsyssel on the old backing board.
415 x 624 mm. (16 3/8 x 24 1/2 in.)
Signed and dated Chr: Mølsted. 1888. at the lower left.
Signed and inscribed Rubjergknude a Vendsyssel. / sildig Eftermittag. / Chr Molsted. / St: Anna Plads No.3. den 15/3 88. on the verso.
Further inscribed Chr Molsted. / St: Anna Plads No.3. and Rubjergknude a Vendsyssel on the old backing board.
415 x 624 mm. (16 3/8 x 24 1/2 in.)
Christian Mølsted mainly painted views on the coast near Copenhagen or on the Jutland peninsula. Dated the 15th of March 1888, the present sheet was drawn, as the artist has noted on the verso, late one afternoon (‘sildig Eftermittag’), and depicts a view of the coast at Rubjerg Knude, on the island of Vendyssel at the northern end of Jutland. In 1900 a lighthouse was built on this spot, but by 1968 a combination of shifting sands and coastal erosion led to the light no longer being visible from the sea, and it ceased operation.
The son of a fisherman, the Danish artist Christian Mølsted was a marine and genre painter. In 1880, following a stint on a Danish frigate, he entered the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, where he spent four years, although he also took the opportunity to travel to Paris to study developments in contemporary art in France. Mølsted first exhibited his work in 1884, and five years later won a prize for a painting of Ships in the Harbour at Larsens Plads, Copenhagen. He soon established a reputation for historically accurate depictions of naval battles from Danish history; the most famous of his works in this vein was a painting of The Frigate Niels Juel at the Battle of Heligoland, painted in 1898 and recording a naval engagement that had taken place in 1864. Mølsted also earned several official state commissions for paintings of scenes from Danish naval history. The artist’s studio in his home town of Dragør is now a museum devoted to his work.