# The Art Historian N.L. Høyen

- By: Wilhelm Marstrand (Danish, 1810–1873)
- Date: 1868
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: height 129 cm, width 98 cm, height 158.5 cm, width 124.3 cm
- Culture: Danish
- Museum: [SMK – National Gallery of Denmark](https://open.smk.dk/artwork/image/KMS870)
- Rights: [Public Domain Mark: SMK waives its rights in this photograph](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/)
- Picture: https://iip-thumb.smk.dk/iiif/jp2/9c67wr825_KMS870.tif.jp2/full/!1920,1080/0/default.jpg
- Who can see it: Teens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Niels Lauritz Høyen was Denmark’s first art historian and taught at the Academy of Fine Arts and at the University of Copenhagen. He introduced order to the national collection of portraits at the Frede¬riksborg Museum and was curator of The Royal Collection of Paintings (later SMK). He was on the board of the exhibition venue “Kunstforeningen” and was Denmark’s leading art critic. Høyen defined, acquired, and exhibited what he regarded as good Danish art. A firm nationalist, he believed that art should serve the people and the nation, not just Beauty. Eckersberg was his hero, Abildgaard quite the opposite, and several artists were caught in between. C.A. Jensen, who painted the portrait of H.C. Ørsted (r), had too coarse and un-Danish a style for Høyen’s liking; he had to give up his career because of Høyen.