Still Life By Johan Laurentz Jensen XIX Century

Johan Laurentz Jensen (1800–1856)
Still Life with Vase, Shell, Fruit and Flowers
Oil on panel, 28 x 35 cm – Frame 37 x 45 cm
Signed lower right JL Jensen

The panel examined is signed lower right by Johan Laurentz Jensen (1800-1856), a Danish painter specializing in the genre of floral still lifes.
Trained at the Danish Academy, he was also a student of Christoffer-Wilhelm Eckersberg and Cladius Detlev Fritzsch. In Paris he frequented the brothers Gérard and Cornelis van Spaendonck, Flemish painters of floral still lifes, and, following the advice of Prince Christian Friedrich, in 1822 he studied the art of miniature flower painting in the Sèvres porcelain factory. Upon his return from Sèvres, Jensen was appointed chief painter at the Royal Copenhagen Manufactory. Among the projects he supervised was the 1836 wedding service for Princess Alexandra and the Prince of Wales, a set that used the scientific "Flora Danica" illustrations of native plants.
From 1833 to 1835 Jensen traveled between France and Italy, where, in Rome, he was considered the most important painter in a large colony of Scandinavian artists. Throughout his career he exhibited regularly at the annual Charlottenberg exhibitions and the Exposition Universelle in Paris. His works were admired and collected by his friends Bertel Thorvaldsen and Hans Christian Anderson. It was these achievements that earned Jensen the reputation as the "father of Danish flower painting" and his status as the most outstanding still life artist of the Danish Golden Age. His works are exhibited at the Statens Museum for Kunst and the Thorvaldsens Museum.
In his essay for the catalogue of Johan Laurentz Jensen’s first solo exhibition in New York (Johan Laurentz Jensen, 1800–1856: Father of Danish Flower Painting [New York: Hirschl & Adler Galleries, 1989]), Ingvar Bergström noted: “Jensen’s oeuvre is richly varied, encompassing flowers, fruit, combinations of both, potted plants, garden plants, cut flowers, and studies of individual flowers, demonstrating his remarkable versatility.” In the panel examined, Jensen arranges a variegated composition of fruit and flowers, accompanied by a ceramic vase and a large shell, which demonstrates his predilection for adding exotic elements. The ensemble of the various elements emerges from a dark, uniform background that emphasizes the tones of the composition, interacting with the play of light and shadow that accentuates the volumes of the fruit in the foreground and the reflections on the surfaces of the shell and vase.