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Kronborg Castle by moonlight signed and dated 'Dahl 1836' (lower right) oil on canvas 12 x 173/4 in. (30.5 x 45.1 cm.) Painted in 1836 PROVENANCE J. C. F. Groht, Libau in Kurland. LITERATURE F. von Boetticher, Malerwerke des 19. Jahrhunderts, Dresden, 1891-1901, vol. I, p. 210, no. 32 (erroneously giving Nationalgalleriet, Oslo, as the owner). M. L. Bang, Johan Christian Dahl 1788-1857. Life and Works, vol. II, Oslo, 1987, no. 800, p. 251 (illustrated, vol. III, pl. 339). EXHIBITION Dresden, 1836, no. 295. NOTES In the summer of 1834 Dahl undertook a trip to his native Norway, stopping in Denmark en route. Dahl was always very well received in Copenhagen and often stayed for a short time before continuing his journey to Christiania and thence to Bergen. The earliest variant of Kronborg Castle dates from 1833 (Bang 717), but there are no known preparatory studies before his second trip in 1834. It is probable that the earlier version was executed after an engraving, possibly of a work by Eckersberg, while the present work was executed after sketches that Dahl produced during his stay in Denmark in June 1834. Dahl has replaced the two-master in the foreground of the earlier work with a cutter in the present work and has considerably simplified the composition, placing greater emphasis on the boat and on Kronborg Castle. Rudolf Zeitler has opined that it was not until 1836, the date of the present work and two years after the second Norwegian journey, that Dahl created masterpieces which demonstrate what a truly great painter of landscapes he had become ( Kunst og Kultur, Oslo, 1982).