A Smoking Party

Here we get a glimpse into a home of the Copenhagen Golden Age, where the son of the house (the future Professor Christian Jürgensen) has invited his friends to an evening with tobacco pipes and conversation. Bendz was one of the Golden Age’s most ambitious painters, which is also apparent in this work’s complicated shadow effects. Unfortunately his career was cut short when Bendz died, only 28 years old, on the obligatory cultural tour to Italy.