Ditlev Gothard Monrad

Pietro Krohn (1840-1905) was a Danish painter, illustrator, theatre director and museum director. He studied painting at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and in the mid-1870s he became a member of the Danish artist's colony in Rome. From 1880 to 1893, he became a costume designed at the Royal Danish Theatre, where he also directed operas. He was artistic director of the porcelain factory Bing & Grøndahl from 1895 to 1892 and, from 1893 until his death, head of the Danish Museum of Art & Design (Kunstindustrimuseet).  Probably his bes-known achievement was as illustrator of the much-loved <em>Peters Jul</em> (Peter's Christmas), a collection of poems about a Danish Christmas, which is still in print; the poems were composed by his brother Johan.

Krohn's pleasing, informal Biedermeier-style pencil portrait of Bishop Ditlev Gothard Monrad was made at a traumatic time in Monrad's life. Recently deposed as prime minister of Denmark and the scapegoat in his country's humiliating defeat in the Second Schleswig War with Prussia (1864), just four months after the drawing was made, Monrad effectively became New Zealand's first major political refugee. Monrad was also a significicant art collector, and the final thing he did before leaving New Zealand to return to Denmark from effective exile, was to donate his remarkable collection of nearly 600 Old Master prints to the Colonial Museum. This constituted the foundation art collection of the nation. Although this drawing was purchased nearly 40 years after the death of Sir John Ilott, that eminent Wellington collector and philanthropist would warmly welcomed its acquisition as representing a still greater man active in cognate fields.

Sources:    Wikipedia, 'Pietro Krohn', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietro_Krohn

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art                       August 2018

He is remembered above all for illustratiing his brother Johan Krohn's Peters Jul together with Otto Haslund.