Blomstrende Amaryllis 1840

Johan Thomas Lundbye made this watercolour of a flowering amaryllis in 1840. Lundbye was part of the Danish Golden Age, a period of intense national self-definition. Artists looked to the local landscape for motifs, but also to the home. Still life paintings such as this were popular among the burgeoning middle class, who found in them an expression of their own values of order, prosperity, and domesticity. But this image is not as straightforward as it seems. The amaryllis was not native to Denmark, and it’s very possible that this particular plant was located in the Copenhagen Botanical Garden. Looking at paintings like this, one needs to be aware of the importance of botanical science to the social and economic changes in 19th century Denmark. You might ask yourself: where else might one find amaryllis depicted? What do its visual associations tell us about the culture of its time?