The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

View from the Battery toward the City

1836

Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg

(Danish, 1783–1853)
Denmark
graphite, pen and black and gray ink, and brush and gray wash on wove paper
Sheet: 18.5 x 31.5 cm (7 5/16 x 12 3/8 in.)
Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund 2020.225
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg depicted the view seen in this work, of Copenhagen from the small island of Trekroner, in several other works including a painting in Denmark’s Hirschsprung Collection.

Description

Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg is known for initiating Danish painting’s Golden Age—a period of cultural efflorescence during the first half of the 19th century. Marine subjects were among the artist’s favorite, and the primary focus of his work beginning in the 1820s. Dating from this period, this drawing depicts Russian ships viewed from a fortress in Copenhagen’s harbor. In his journal, Eckersberg described making the trip to see the fleet with friends and waiting for the waters to become calm enough for sailing. To convey this experience, he juxtaposed precise perspective of the landscape with expressively rendered clouds.
  • 1836-1853
    Estate of the artist [1785-1853], Copenhagen, Denmark
    1854
    (his sale, Copenhagen, January 1854, no. 375)
    ?-2015
    Private collection, Denmark
    November 24, 2015
    (sale, Bruun Rasmussen, Copenhagen, November 24, 2015, no. 61)
    ?-2020
    (Le Claire Kunst, Hamburg, Germany, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
    2020-
    Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Conisbee, Philip, Kasper Monrad, and Lene Bøgh Rønberg. Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, 1783-1853. Exh. Cat. Washington: National Gallery of Art, 2003. Mentioned: p. 145
    C.W. Eckersbergs dagbøger 1870-1837. Vol. 1 (Copenhagen: Nyt Nordisk, 2009). Mentioned: p. 703
    Dauschek, Anja. Regine Gerhardt, and Vanessa Hirsch. Melbye: Maler des Meeres, Painter of the Ocean. Exh. Cat. Hamburg: Altonaer Museum, 2017. Mentioned and reproduced: pp. 65, 96
    Kehlembeck, Gerhard and Thomas le Claire. The Danish Golden Age: Ten Drawings from Private Collections. Hamburg: Le Claire Kunst, 2019 Mentioned and reproduced: no. 6
  • Melbye: Maler des Meeres, Painter of the Ocean. Altonaer Museum, Hamburg (September 20, 2017 - February 4, 2018).
  • {{cite web|title=View from the Battery toward the City|url=false|author=Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg|year=1836|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2020.225