Christian Albrecht Jensen

Christian Albrecht Jensen (26 June 1792 – 13 July 1870) was a Danish painter who specialised in portrait painting and was active during the Danish Golden Age. Painting more than 400 portraits over the course of his career, he depicted most of the leading figures of the Danish Golden Age, including the writer Hans Christian Andersen, the painter Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, the sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen, the physicist Hans Christian Ørsted and the theologian N. F. S. Grundtvig. Although Jensen experienced considerable commercial success, he received little official appreciation from the artistic establishment of his day. In particular, the art historian and critic Niels Lauritz Høyen criticized his style, finding his paintings 'unfinished'.

Early life and education Jensen was born at Bredstedt in Nordfriesland. From 1810 to 1816, he attended the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen where he studied under Christian August Lorentzen. From 1817 to 1818, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden.

Time abroad The sculptor H. E. Freund portrayed during Jensen's stay in Rome, 1818–20 In 1818, he traveled to Rome by way of Vienna, Venice, Bologna and Florence. When he arrived, he joined the large colony of Danish-German artists' who lived in the city at the time and also met the sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen.

During his years in Rome, Jensen painted small, informal portraits of many of his fellow artists, including the writer Bernhard Severin Ingemann who visited Rome from 1818 to 1819, and the sculptor Hermann Ernst Freund, Thorvaldsen's closest associate from 1818 to 1828.

After leaving Rome, he made an unsuccessful attempt to establish himself as a portrait painter in Hamburg.

Success and criticism Back in Copenhagen in the winter of 1822/23, the portrait scene was dominated by Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg's sober, Neoclassical style, yet Jensen's more psychological portraits won immediate popularity. Other portrayed scientists included the astronomer Wilhelm von Struve.

Late life The 1840s brought a further decline in orders, prompted by his political views which were not in line with the nationalist tendencies at the time as well as by continued criticism from Høyen. Eventually, after completing more than 400 portraits, he stopped painting. His last two works, portraits of Andreas Christian Krog (1854) and the theologian Andreas Gottlob Rudelbach, are considered to be among his best.

For the remainder of his life, he worked as an assistant at the Royal Print Collection and as a conservator, supplementing his income by selling paintings from his large art collection.

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