Illustrationsudkast til H.C. Andersen, "Suppe paa en Pølsepind" 1866

Lorenz Frølich made this illustration, a black ink drawing, as a draft for Hans Christian Andersen’s story, "Soup on a Sausage Peg". Frølich was deeply invested in illustrating Nordic folklore and mythology. Here, the artist adapts his style to Andersen's tale of animals feasting inside a skull, rendered as a dark cave with hatch marks. It’s worth noting that this project and others like it were commissioned during a period of intense national romanticism in Denmark. The project was funded by institutions devoted to the arts and humanities. Andersen and Frølich helped shape a Danish cultural identity through the illustration of old folk tales. You see a tension here: the subject matter in the fairytale challenges the very social structures that fostered its creation, as the animals feast on the remains of a human. Historians use letters, diaries, and account books to discover the meanings that works of art like this once held for their creators and their original audiences.