En tyk herre er ved at stige ud af en gondol 1810 - 1873

Wilhelm Marstrand sketched this drawing, "En tyk herre er ved at stige ud af en gondol", with pen and brown ink, likely in the mid-19th century. It’s currently held at the SMK, the National Gallery of Denmark. Marstrand’s sketch offers a glimpse into the social dynamics of 19th-century Venice. Gondolas were, and still are, closely linked with tourism and the upper classes. We can see how the artist has rendered the corpulent gentleman struggling to alight from the gondola in a manner that is faintly satirical. We can learn more about the cultural context of this drawing by consulting travel journals and social commentaries from the period. These sources would shed light on the ways in which artists, like Marstrand, engaged with the burgeoning tourism industry and the changing social mores of the time. By exploring these historical and cultural layers, we gain a deeper understanding of the image and its relationship to society.