1839
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Dominant colour
Little Regine in Vallekilde is a 1839 by Johan Lundbye, a Romanticism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
A young girl sits knitting, her face soft in the light. Around her, quick sketches of animals and faces float like doodles on the page. This isn’t just a portrait—it’s an etching, a print made by scratching lines into metal. Lundbye filled the space with playful, unfinished drawings, almost like a private joke between him and his cousin Regine. If you like how the lines feel loose and lively, look up *impasto*—a way of laying paint thickly so it stands out from the canvas.
Johan Thomas Lundbye belonged to the youngest generation of artists working during Denmark’s Golden Age, a period of unprecedented creative activity during the first half of the 19th century. An avid painter and draftsman, he simultaneously created more intimate prints such as this one depicting his cousin, Regine. The young girl appears knitting, surrounded by whimsical and anecdotal sketches that play on the experimentality of etching.
The subject of this print, Johan Thomas Lundbye’s cousin Regine, wore the distinctive bonnet seen here to obscure her face following a childhood accident.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Johan Thomas Lundbye (1 September 1818 – 25 April 1848) was a Danish painter and graphic artist, known for his animal and landscape paintings.
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