Portræt af Ferdinand Bols hustru

This is a portrait of Ferdinand Bol's wife by Vilhelm Kyhn, made with an engraving technique. The portrait depicts a woman of apparent status. Her clothing, jewelry, and composed posture all speak to this status. The curtain in the background evokes those seen in portraits of wealthy and influential members of Dutch society during the Golden Age. Kyhn, however, was a 19th-century artist looking back at that era. This image offers a 19th-century artist's perspective on the Dutch Golden Age. Kyhn was a member of the Danish Golden Age art scene. He helped establish an art scene that expressed national identity, and explored the relationship between the Danish people and the natural world. The image speaks to a 19th-century interest in the history of art and the establishment of a cultural identity in Denmark. Historians can study how an artist appropriates codes of representation from a previous period. Studying the collections of institutions, such as the SMK, helps to understand how artists draw on the past.