2-745-645 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

The Slotskirken of Christiansborg, Copenhagen, c. 1850s. Among the many important Neoclassical buildings erected in Copenhagen during the 1800s was the Slotskirke or royal chapel, completed in 1826. Heinrich Hansen painted this sober, quiet view of the chapel's interior, carefully rendering its delicate shadows and patches of sunlight. Probably inspired by 17th-century Dutch paintings of church interiors, the artist accurately portrayed many of the building's features. The angels in the pendentives (the triangular areas beneath the circular dome) were carved by the great Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen (1768-1884).