Bolette Puggaard

Bolette Cathrine Frederikke Puggaard née Hage (1798–1847) was a landscape painter and one of very few 19th-century Danish women whose art extended beyond flower paintings. She and her husband, the merchant and shipowner Hans Puggaard, are remembered for their philanthropic activities as well as supporting many of the painters of the Danish Golden Age.

Personal life Born on 7 February 1798 in Stege on the island of Møn, Bolette Cathrine Frederikke Hage was the daughter of the merchant Christopher Friedenreich Hage (1759–1849) and Christiane Arnette Just (1778–1866). and was survived by her three children, the merchant Rudolph Puggaard (1818–1883), the geologist Christopher Puggaard (1823–1864), and Annette Maria Lehmann (1821–1849). Annette Maria was an artist herself who also studied with Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg.

Many of her descendants were reputed artists, such as the poet Helge Rode (1870–1937), the writer Jacob Paludan (1896–1975), the painter Oluf Hartmann (1879–1910), and the sculptor Rudolph Tegner (1873–1950).

Career and philanthropy When visiting Rome with her family in 1835–36, she met several Danish painters and painted a number of landscapes. She and her husband developed a close friendship with sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen. The two were the main initiators and artisans of the creation of the Thorvaldsen museum in Copenhagen.

Bolette Puggaard exhibited at the Charlottenborg Spring Exhibition in 1838, 1844 and 1845. Her works were later included in the 1895 Copenhagen Women's Exhibition.

Bolette was also politically engaged and strongly opposed to absolutism. When the Thorvaldsen museum was inaugurated, she put the French tricolour on the top of the building, claiming to be ready to defend this action even in front of the King if needed. Her view was that "it was Thorvaldsen who brought freedom in the arts, and it is our most noble duty to fight for it". Her passion for democracy was inspired by her brother Johannes Dam Hage, a leading defendant of the abolition of absolutism in Denmark who killed himself after having been condemned to censorship for life. Her son in law Orla Lehmann, married to her daughter Maria, and later one of the main authors of the Danish liberal Constitution of 1848, had also been jailed for his democratic ideas.

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