CARL FREDERIK SÖRENSEN (1818-1879). Study from Cassis.

Oil on canvas laid on cardboard, 12.5 x 22 cm. Signed with monogram CFS and with the text Cassis and dated 21 June 186 (4)?

Oil study painted “en plein air”,

The motif is taken from Cassis in southern France with sunset in the Mediterranean and the mountain range near Cassis in the background.

Sorensen was a Danish marine painter. He was the son of merchant and skipper Rasmus and Else Margrethe Sørensen. His father owned a yacht, which he sailed himself, and already as a boy Sørensen was allowed to sail with him, this gave him a taste for the sailor's life, but his mother wanted him to stay on land, and when she became a widow she sent him to Copenhagen. He attended the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen and initially worked as a decorative painter and decorated several parts of the Thorvaldsen Museum during its construction. In 1842 he took the initiative together with some other artist friends to form the Artists' Association and as the years passed, Sørensen gained more and more public favor. In 1846 King Christian VIII allowed him to accompany him with a naval frigate to the Mediterranean, and from this voyage, as from all his subsequent ones, Sørensen brought home a wealth of studies which he later used in his painting. One of these trips was made in 1864, in which, together with Michael Ancher, he travelled to southern Europe, and this study is probably from this trip. In 1847 he was awarded the Neuhausen Prize by the Academy of Fine Arts. Sørensen became one of the most respected and popular artists of his time in Denmark. In 1866 he also became a member of the Swedish Academy of Arts, in 1869 professor and in 1874 Knight of the Dannebrog. Four of his most important paintings belong to the Statens Museum for Kunst. His works ended up both in the Nordic countries and in the USA et al.