ERIKSEN, Vigilius

(b. 1722 København, d. 1783 Rungstedgard)

Danish painter, active also in Russia. He was apprenticed to the portrait painter Johann Salomon Wahl in Copenhagen. In 1755 he competed unsuccessfully for the gold medal at the Royal Academy of Art in Copenhagen with a historical painting, Lot and his Wife (untraced). In a letter he complained that the rules did not allow him to enter a portrait, a genre more suited to his talents. Presumably in 1756 he completed the portraits of the registrar of the royal art collections, Lorenz Spengler and his Wife (Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen). These portraits already show the specific features of Eriksen’s style, characterized by precise rendering of the sitter, distinct modelling of form and a cool virtuosity in the unemphatic treatment of dresses and accessories.

Vigilius Eriksen was the royal portraitist to Christian VI of Denmark.

Dowager Queen Juliane Marie of Denmark

Juliane Marie (1729-1796) was queen of Denmark between 1752 and 1766, second consort of king Frederik V of Denmark and Norway, mother of the prince-regent Hereditary Prince Frederick of Denmark and Norway and herself de facto regent 1772-1784. After her husband’s death she saw her position at the Danish court becoming marginalised by count Struensee, whose position as physician-in-ordinary to the mad King Christian VII made him the de facto ruler of Denmark during the first few years of the 1770s. She became one of the driving forces behind a coup against Struensee in 1772, the same year that Vigilius Eriksen from the Russian court received the commission for this portrait of her.

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Portrait of Catherine II before a Mirror

This Danish artist, who worked at the Russian court between 1757 and 1772, produced some 30 portraits of Catherine II with different programs, compositions, and purposes. He was the first in Russia to use this type of portrait with a mirror, making it possible to show the two sides of the subject’s character - the imperious monarch and the sensitive woman.

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