Artwork
The Village Carpenter Bringing a Coffin for a Dead Child
The Village Carpenter Bringing a Coffin for a Dead Child is an oil painting by the Social Realist artist Christen Dalsgaard. It dates from 1857 and is held in the collection of the Statens Museum for Kunst.
About this work
Subject & Meaning
The composition captures a moment of profound sorrow, representing the harsh economic and emotional conditions of the era.
Christen Dalsgaard's 1857 oil painting, The Village Carpenter Bringing a Coffin for a Dead Child, is a work of social realism that depicts the death of a child within a humble domestic setting. The scene centers on a carpenter delivering a coffin to a grieving family, visually represented by a man and a woman. As a genre scene, the artwork focuses on the raw reality of rural life and the immediate impact of child mortality.
The inclusion of the coffin and the figures of the parents serves as the primary iconography, emphasizing the tragedy and the communal role of the craftsman in preparing for burial. The composition captures a moment of profound sorrow, representing the harsh economic and emotional conditions of the era.
Technique & Style
The work is executed in oil paint on canvas, a standard support for mid-nineteenth-century Danish genre painting. Its dimensions are 73.5 by 104.5 cm, giving the composition a horizontal orientation that accommodates the narrative interaction between the figures at the doorway.
Stylistically, the painting belongs to social realism, a movement concerned with depicting the everyday circumstances and hardships of ordinary people. This is consistent with its genre-scene subject matter, in which a village carpenter delivers a small coffin to a household affected by the loss of an infant, rendered as a sober, observational tableau rather than an idealized or sentimental one.
History & Provenance
The work was painted in 1857 by Christen Dalsgaard as a genre scene depicting a carpenter transporting a child’s coffin.
It entered the collection of Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, where it remains held. The museum’s records list the painting’s dimensions as 73.5 cm in height and 104.5 cm in width.
Overview
Christen Dalsgaard's 1857 oil painting, "The Village Carpenter Bringing a Coffin for a Dead Child," captures a somber domestic moment. This work of social realism depicts a carpenter delivering a small coffin, signaling a profound loss within a rural home. The scene is characterized by a quiet sorrow, reflecting the artist's focus on everyday life and human emotion, rendered with a sensitive attention to detail and atmosphere.
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Artist & collection
Artist
Christen Dalsgaard (30 October 1824 – 11 February 1907) was a Danish painter, a late student of Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg.
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