Friedrich Bernhard Westphal (5 October 1803,

Schleswig The Duchy of Schleswig ( da, Hertugdømmet Slesvig; german: Herzogtum Schleswig; nds, Hartogdom Sleswig; frr, Härtochduum Slaswik) was a duchy in Southern Jutland () covering the area between about 60 km (35 miles) north and 70 km ...

– 24 December 1844) was a German-Danish

genre painter Genre painting (or petit genre), a form of genre art, depicts aspects of everyday life by portraying ordinary people engaged in common activities. One common definition of a genre scene is that it shows figures to whom no identity can be attached ...

and illustrator. He was also known by his nickname Fritz Westphal.

Life

Thorvaldsens modtagelse på Toldboden, 17 September1838

From 1821 to 1826 he studied at the

Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts ( da, Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi - Billedkunst Skolerne) has provided education in the arts for more than 250 years, playing its part in the development of the art of Denmark. History The Royal Dan ...

in Copenhagen alongside Carl Andreas August Goos, Hermann Wilhelm Bissen, Harro Harring and the Norwegian landscape painter

Thomas Fearnley Thomas Fearnley (27 December 1802 – 16 January 1842) was a Norwegian romantic painter, a pupil of Johan Christian Dahl and a leading representative of Norwegian romantic nationalism in painting. His son Thomas Fearnley (1841–1927) founded ...

. In 1823 he took Fearnley on a hike through Schleswig-Holstein. In 1827 he returned to his birthplace and produced a lithograph of J. F. Fritz's 'Four Seasons' sequence in Flensburg. In 1828 he studied in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

and from May 1829 alongside Fearnley in

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label= Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...

, where he befriended the genre painter Joseph Petzl – both Westphal and Petzl recorded their artistic, romantic and everyday lives in diary-like drawings. Petzl was a major influence on Westphal, who began painting small genre works in the Biedermeier style, sometimes reflecting recent historical events such as the

Tyrol Tyrol (; historically the Tyrole; de-AT, Tirol ; it, Tirolo) is a historical region in the Alps - in Northern Italy and western Austria. The area was historically the core of the County of Tyrol, part of the Holy Roman Empire, Austrian Emp ...

ese struggle against the

Austrian Empire The Austrian Empire (german: link=no, Kaiserthum Oesterreich, modern spelling , ) was a Central-Eastern European multinational great power from 1804 to 1867, created by proclamation out of the realms of the Habsburgs. During its existence ...

and the Greeks suffering from cholera epidemics. He also painted scenes from Danish contemporary history, such as Bertel Thorvaldsen's return to Copenhagen (1838), Frederick VI's funeral procession (1840) and the anointing of Christian VIII (1840). Aftershocks of the 1830 French

July Revolution The French Revolution of 1830, also known as the July Revolution (french: révolution de Juillet), Second French Revolution, or ("Three Glorious ays), was a second French Revolution after the first in 1789. It led to the overthrow of King ...

in the

Kingdom of Saxony The Kingdom of Saxony (german: Königreich Sachsen), lasting from 1806 to 1918, was an independent member of a number of historical confederacies in Napoleonic through post-Napoleonic Germany. The kingdom was formed from the Electorate of Saxo ...

caused both Petzl and Westphal to move to Schleswig. In summer 1832 Westphal went on a hike through Norway and from 1837 onwards he began to produce illustrations for books by the Danish writers

Christian Winther Rasmus Villads Christian Ferdinand Winther (29 July 1796 – 30 December 1876), was a Danish lyric poet. He was born at Fensmark near Næstved, where his father was the vicar. He went to the University of Copenhagen in 1815, and studied theol ...

Heinrich Hertz Heinrich Rudolf Hertz ( ; ; 22 February 1857 – 1 January 1894) was a German physicist who first conclusively proved the existence of the electromagnetic waves predicted by James Clerk Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism. The unit ...

and Carsten Hauch. Hoping to travel to Italy, Westphal returned to Copenhagen to compete for the academy's Great Gold Medal, whose prize was a scholarship to go to Rome, but lost the 1837, 1839 and 1841 competitions for it. He then became a "costumier" at the

Royal Danish Theatre The Royal Danish Theatre (RDT, Danish: ') is both the national Danish performing arts institution and a name used to refer to its old purpose-built venue from 1874 located on Kongens Nytorv in Copenhagen. The theatre was founded in 1748, first s ...

in Copenhagen. After his death his sister Sophie tried to keep his memory alive by publishing "Genre-Bilder in Bildern und Tönen von Fritz Westphal" in 1852 – it contained 32 of his poems and 10 of his lithographs.

Works

* ''Portrait of Westphal's master baker'', c. 1825. 22 x 18 cm. Stiftung Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesmuseen, Schloss Gottorf, Schleswig. * ''Sappho'', c. 1828. Stiftung Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesmuseen, Schloss Gottorf, Schleswig.
''Winter''
drawing, c. 1828. Städt. Museum Schleswig.
''Self portrait''
c. 1828. Städt. Museum Schleswig.
''The Möwenpreis''
1836. 82 x 101,5 cm. Städt. Museum Schleswig. * ''David Playing the Harp for Saul'', 1837. Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts
''King Valdemar testing Little Else''
1838. 82 x 97,5 cm.

National Gallery of Denmark The National Gallery of Denmark ( da, Statens Museum for Kunst, also known as "SMK", literally State Museum for Art) is the Danish national gallery, located in the centre of Copenhagen. The museum collects, registers, maintains, researches and han ...

* ''Christ at Emmaus'', altarpiece, 1838.

Aastrup Church Aastrup Church ( da, Åstrup Kirke), located on the top of a steep hill in the village of Aastrup, southwest of Stubbekøbing on the Danish island of Falster, dates from c. 1200. Built in the Late Romanesque style, it has frescos from the 13th ...

''Thorvaldsen's Return to Copenhagen in 1838''
c. 1840. 71,5 x 100 cm.

Thorvaldsen-Museum The Thorvaldsen Museum is a single-artist museum in Copenhagen, Denmark, dedicated to the art of Danish Neoclassical sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770–1844), who lived and worked in Rome for most of his life (1796–1838). The museum is locat ...

, Copenhagen.

Bibliography (in German)

* Ernst Schlee: ''Leben und Treiben im alten Schleswig.'' Flensburg 1972. *

Ulrich Schulte-Wülwer Ulrich Schulte-Wülwer (born 15 December 1944, Meppen) is a German art historian, specializing in north German painters of the 19th and 20th centuries. Life Selected works * ''Das Nibelungenlied in der deutschen Kunst und Kunstliteratur zwis ...

: ''Der Maler Friedrich Bernhard Westphal.'' In: Nordelbingen – Beiträge zur Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte Schleswig-Holsteins, Bd. 61, 1992, S. 65–110. * Ulrich Schulte-Wülwer: ''Gezeichnete Tagebücher zur Zeit des Biedermeier – Fritz Westphal und Joseph Petzl.'' Heide 1993,
Westphal on GBV
{{DEFAULTSORT:Westphal, Friedrich Bernhard 1803 births 1844 deaths 19th-century painters of historical subjects 19th-century Danish painters Danish male painters 19th-century German painters 19th-century German male artists Danish lithographers 19th-century Danish illustrators German lithographers German illustrators People from Schleswig, Schleswig-Holstein German genre painters German history painters Danish genre painters Danish history painters 19th-century Danish male artists