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Gerhard Morell, Keeper of the Royal Danish Kunstkammer
Johann Salomon Wahl (German, 1689–1765)
1704-1765
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- width 70 cm, height 84.5 cm, height 78 cm, width 62.5 cm
- Culture
- German
- Museum
- SMK – National Gallery of Denmark
- Rights
- Public Domain Mark: SMK waives its rights in this photograph, as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
View at the SMK – National Gallery of Denmark
About this work
Johan Salomon Wahl (1689-1765) was curator of the Royal Danish Kunstkammer and a practicing artist. Here he has portrayed his successor, Gerhard Morell. Wahl had imposed a certain degree of order upon the old-fashioned "kunstkammer" (cabinet of curiosities/art display). The advent of Morell, an enthusiastic buyer of arts, made it possible to transform the collections into a royal gallery and art collection in the international vein.The new gallery at Christiansborg was intended to comprise selected pieces already owned by the king and new acquisitions. From 1755 to 1763 Morell travelled to e.g. Amsterdam where he primarily acquired Dutch and Italian paintings of a scope and quality hitherto unknown in Denmark. Many of these works are still regarded as the best in the collection.
