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Eilif Peterssen, Self Portrait
Hjalmar Eilif Emanuel Peterssen was born on Sept. 4, 1852 in Christiania, (known as Oslo since 1925), and spent his early life in the Christiania borough of Frogner. He attended the local schools and at the age of 17 enrolled at the city’s Johan Fredrik Eckersberg School of Painting. This painting school, on Lille Grensen in Christiania, had been established in 1859 by the Norwegian artist, Johan Fredrik Eckersberg. After Eckersberg’s death in 1870, the running of the school was taken over by two Norwegian painters Knud Bergslien and Morten Müller.
...Every successful artist needs to have had a breakthrough painting, one which announces his arrival on the art scene. For Peterssen his breakthrough work was an historical painting he completed in 1876 entitled Christian II Signing the Death Warrant of Torben Oxe. The story behind the depiction is from sixteenth century history of the Nordic countries. Christian II was the last Roman Catholic king of Denmark and Torben Oxe was a noble who was appointed Governor of Copenhagen Castle. In the summer of 1517, Dyveke Sigbritsdatter, the king’s mistress, fell ill and died and Torben Oxe was accused by Dyveke’s mother of her daughter’s murder by poisoning her through a box of cherries. Christian II believed the accusation and condemned his friend Oxe to death. In the painting we see Christian, unmoved by the momentous event, signing the death warrant. His wife, is at her husband’s left and is seen pleading with her husband for Oxe’s life. Oxe was beheaded, and his body burned.
Eilif Peterssen’s portraiture had become very popular and besides his commissioned works he would paint many un-commissioned portraits of people.
...Hjalmar Eilif Emanuel Peterssen died in Lysaker, a town close to Oslo, on Dec. 29 1928, aged 76.
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