Wilhelm Bendz' well-known image of his friend, Ditlev Blunck, 1826. The picture gives an impression of how the painters of the time saw themselves: As serious, self-aware artists. The particular painter in this picture is standing in a crowded room surrounded by his tools and paraphernalia: a paintbox, palette, and easel as well as a skull and a sketchbook suggesting that careful studies precede the final painting." http://www.smk.dk/en/explore-the-art/highlights/wilhelm-bendz-a-young-artist-ditlev-blunck-examining-a-sketch/ (http://godsandfoolishgrandeur.blogspot.nl/2016/09/the-four-ages-of-man-paintings-by.html) ... one in a series of Danish Golden Age portraits of artists. The painting shows young Ditlev Blunck taking a break to examine a sketch for a portrait of Jørgen Valentin Sonne painting his brother, engraver Carl Edvard Sonne, by holding it up in front of a mirror to see if the composition works. The painting was executed in 1826 at time when Wilhelm Bendz was preoccupied by artists' new role; no longer craftsmen but instead considered intellectuals, artists in the modern sense of the word. During the 1820s he painted a series of portraits of artists at work. The painting shows a time when painters took themselves seriously as working artists. The image of Blunck standing in a packed room surrounded by his tools, paintbox, palette and easel, skull and sketchpad, signals that his work is serious, and requires thorough study before execution. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Young_Artist_(Ditlev_Blunck)_Examining_a_Sketch_in_a_Mirror)