En mærkelig skrivelse 1810 - 1873

Wilhelm Marstrand created this pen drawing, titled "A Strange Letter", in nineteenth-century Denmark. It depicts a domestic interior, likely in a well-to-do home, with a man reading aloud to two women. Marstrand was trained at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, an institution with strong ties to the established social order. Many of his paintings feature scenes from literature and theatre. But here, the narrative is ambiguous. Is the letter good or bad news? And what is the relationship between the figures? Without knowing the specific literary source, it's difficult to say exactly what's going on. But the image invites us to speculate, and to consider the social dynamics of the time. Examining related drawings and paintings, as well as letters and literature from the period, might offer further insight. Art history is detective work, piecing together the clues to understand an artwork’s meaning in its original context.