Illustration til Johan Krohn, "Peters jul" 1870

Curator: Welcome. Here we have Carl Leonard Sandberg's "Illustration til Johan Krohn, 'Peters jul'," dating back to 1870. It's an engraving on paper, currently held at the SMK - Statens Museum for Kunst. What strikes you first about it? Editor: The whispering! I’m immediately drawn to the intimate scene in the upper left, this huddle and secret-telling – it feels like stepping into a cozy, if slightly mischievous, Christmas. It's so delicate. Curator: Absolutely. Note the medium; this kind of print work, engraving on paper, would have been fairly accessible at the time, likely circulated widely as part of a book or similar publication. The very *means* of production are crucial; these images brought stories and a sense of shared culture into homes. The subject reflects the time of Christmas as it presents an ideal of a bourgeois family, maybe. Editor: It feels handmade somehow, almost homespun with the script, in a way printed texts never are, I get that feeling in the poems and phrases printed around. Yet it looks more naive with such an irregular pattern around the artwork composition... Maybe it’s something I felt in my family times. The poems create something special here. Curator: Note how Sandberg uses a collection of smaller drawings together in a kind of visual narrative rather than depicting a single scene? Consider what details Sandberg has prioritised; are they markers of a rising merchant class, markers of domestic comfort, or something else entirely? Editor: True. There’s a lovely kind of storytelling here, as if each vignette offers a key moment or an emblematic object that hints at a richer whole. That candelabra is beautiful and a humble but symbolic sign of celebration... Curator: Examining it through that lens allows us to consider both the content of the illustration and the context of its creation and consumption within 19th-century Danish society. Its value isn't simply aesthetic; it lies in how it functioned as a cultural artefact. Editor: Precisely, to come face to face with a tiny treasure trove of Christmas cheer. What begins in a whisper ends with ribbons and sweets. What’s more enchanting than that? Thanks for drawing out its charm for me.