View of a Street in Østerbro outside Copenhagen. Morning Light

About this work

Købke has turned an everyday scene into a monumental image. The scene is from rural surroundings outside of Copenhagen, specifically Østerbrogade by the present-day Lille Triangel. Here, Købke has captured a number of everyday early-morning scenes – fishwives and peasants on their way to market, citizens taking a morning walk, and cows being taking to pasture on the Commons. Here, Købke focuses on a bourgeois reality otherwise avoided in his images. Yet the crucial, all-important element of the painting is its depiction of the morning light falling from the right-hand side upon the trees, road, and water pump.