• Franz Ludwig Catel

  1778-1856

• John James Rubby

  1750-1812

The Golden Age

• Production Date

  1812, 1812

• Type of Work / Object

  Painting > Historical Painting

• Location

  • Not on display

• Inventory Number

  B299

• Catalogue Number

  B299

• Catalogue Level / Collection

  Thorvaldsen's Collections > Collection of Paintings (B)

Explanation

• When Thorvaldsen arrived in Rome in 1797, it was natural for him to seek out the charismatic Schleswiger Carstens, who had arrived five years earlier after having been in Copenhagen from 1771 to 1783, for part of the time as a student in the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. Like Thorvaldsen, the black-and-white artist Carstens, however, was primarily interested in representing the human figure. This picture of an Age of Gold, or a Golden Age, with its careful reproduction of the landscape is thus not typical of him. The title of the painting does not refer to what we today associate with the golden age, that is to say Danish painting 1800-1850, but to the ancient idea of the very earliest time, a paradisiacal age of happiness in a southern Arcadia. This Age of Gold was followed by a less happy Age of Silver, an Age of Copper and so on. Naked, carefree and in harmonious fellowship, the figures move in the idealised landscape of the Age of Gold

Additional Catalogue Information