Carl Ludvig MESSMANN
(Copenhagen 1826 - Gothenburg 1893)
An Inn at Nærum near Søllerød, with Nærumgaard in the Distance
Signed L. Messmann in pencil at the lower right.
Inscribed by the artist Tegnet d. 30 de. Mai 1844 / om Formiddagen / den forhenværende Kro in Nærum
Further inscribed or signed L. Messman. f. 1844 on the old mount, and Tegend af L. Messmann
on the verso.
160 x 210 mm. (6 1/4 x 8 1/4 in.)
This drawing bears the drystamp of the Danish collector Benjamin Wolff (1790-1866).
By 1852 Messmann had settled in Roskilde, the ancient capital of Denmark, west of Copenhagen, where he made several drawings and paintings of the 13th century Roskilde Cathedral. He continued to exhibit landscape paintings and pencil drawings, and the second half of the 1850s were to be a particularly productive period. Apart from Frederik VII, other Danish collectors of Messmann’s work included the businessman Johan Hansen and the publisher Jacob Hegel, as well as such fellow artists as Carl Emil Baagøe, Ludvig Abelin (L.A.) Schou and Johan Christian Dahl.
Messmann often worked in Sweden, and in 1857 moved there permanently, living briefly in Malmö before settling in Gothenburg in September 1859. The artist lived and worked in Sweden for the remaining thirty-four years of his career, making occasional trips back to Denmark. He became as well known for his views of Gothenburg as he had been for his earlier depictions of Copenhagen, and also worked as a teacher of drawing and perspective. Messmann illustrated a series of views of Gothenburg and its surroundings as lithographs for Viktor Rydberg’s Göteborg med dess omgifningar, which was published in twelve volumes between 1859 and 1862. He continued to exhibit both paintings and drawings, characterized by a precision of handling and an attention to detail, until his death in Gothenburg in 1893, at the age of sixty-seven. The artist remains a somewhat obscure figure today, and is rarely mentioned in accounts of 19th century painting in either Denmark and Sweden. Drawings and paintings by Ludvig Messmann are today in the collections of the Museum of Copenhagen, the Roskilde Museum and the Øregård Museum in Denmark, as well as the Goteborgs Stadtmuseum in Gothenburg, the Malmö Konstmuseum in Malmö, the Nasjonalgalleriet in Oslo and the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, while a handful of lithographs by the artist are in the British Museum.
Provenance
Thence by descent until 2018.