BENDZ, Wilhelm

(b. 1804 Odense, d. 1832 Vicenza)

Danish painter. He is mainly known for genre works and portraits which often portray his artist colleagues and their daily lives. He was one of the most talented artists in the successful generation of painters who studied under Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg but died early and has therefore left a relatively small oeuvre.

He attended the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts from 1820 to 1825, where he studied under Eckersberg. After his graduation from the Academy, Bendz contributed successfully with a number of works to the annual exhibitions at Charlottenborg in 1826, 1827 and 1828.

In late 1830 Bendz received a travel scholarship which enabled him to leave for southern Europe. After shorter visits to Dresden and Berlin, he initially went to Munich, where he stayed for around a year. In the autumn of 1832 he continued his journey towards Rome, stopping in Venice on the way. He had felt ill in Vicenza and died from a lung infection.

A Young Artist Examining a Sketch in a Mirror

Wilhelm Bendz was keenly interested in the new role emerging for artists in the early 19th century; they were no longer regarded as specialist craftsmen, but as intellectual workers, as artists in the modern sense. In the 1820s, he painted a number of pictures of artists at work. The artist in this picture is Bendz’s fellow student Ditlev Blunck (1799-1853) engaged in painting a portrait of Jorgen Sonne, a painter of battle scenes.

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The Waagepetersen Family

The painting depicts the wine merchant Christian Waagepetersen and his family in his office within the family’s home in Copenhagen. With its clear demonstration of the pressures of work handled by the head of the family, the picture illustrates the fundamental values for the Danish middle classes circa 1830: family and work. The home is sparingly furnished with no unnecessary ornamentation, reflecting the thriftiness prevalent in Denmark during the hard years that followed the Napoleonic wars.

Waagepetersen was keenly interested in art and music. He frequently threw musical soirees in his home, where the leading Danish composers and musicians attended alongside painters and sculptors. Waagepetersen also commissioned several pictures addressing themes from his own life and work like this piece.

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