
Wikimedia Commons • Public Domain
Copenhagen, Denmark
Permanently housed
Caspar David Friedrich captured himself as a young artist in this early self-portrait, created with the careful draftsmanship he learned at the Copenhagen Academy. The intense gaze and serious expression reveal the introspective nature of a painter who would become German Romanticism's most important figure. The drawing shows Friedrich's skill at precise rendering of facial features before he developed the misty, atmospheric landscape style for which he became famous.
Friedrich grew up in Greifswald on the Baltic coast and studied at the Copenhagen Academy from 1794 to 1798 before settling in Dresden. This self-portrait likely dates from around 1800, during his formative years before the haunting landscapes of wanderers, ruined abbeys, and infinite skies that made him celebrated. The work now belongs to the National Gallery of Denmark in Copenhagen, appropriately housed near where Friedrich received his artistic training.

Jacob Jordaens
National Gallery of Denmark (Statens Museum for Kunst), Copenhagen, Copenhagen

Salvator Rosa
National Gallery of Denmark (Statens Museum for Kunst), Copenhagen, Copenhagen

Lucas Cranach the Elder
National Gallery of Denmark (Statens Museum for Kunst), Copenhagen, Copenhagen

Peder Severin Krøyer
National Gallery of Denmark (Statens Museum for Kunst), Copenhagen, Copenhagen
Other masterpieces from the Romanticism movement

Francisco Goya, 1823
Museo del Prado, Madrid, Madrid

Eugène Delacroix, 1834
Louvre, Paris, Paris

Francisco Goya, 1814
Museo del Prado, Madrid, Madrid

Francisco Goya, 1800
Museo del Prado, Madrid, Madrid

Francisco Goya, 1823
Museo del Prado, Madrid, Madrid

Eugène Delacroix, 1827
Louvre, Paris, Paris

Francisco Goya, 1800
Museo del Prado, Madrid, Madrid

J.M.W. Turner, 1839
National Gallery, London
Luxury wall art with the same mood and energy. Gallery-quality canvas, no museum crowds.
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