The Midwife Taking Leave of the girl from Andros. From Terence´s Andria

The painting is the first of four scenes from the romantic comedy "The Andria" that Abildgaard painted; he would later give these paintings as a wedding gift to his second wife, Juliane Marie.

After a broken and unhappy marriage, Abildgaard met his second wife Juliane Marie some time before 1800. This new, reinvigorating relationship introduced new themes in his art, leading him to address aspects of love.

Scenes from Terence's romantic comedy

During the time after 1800 he created four large canvases to be placed in the residence provided for the couple at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts at Charlottenborg, filling them with scenes from the ancient writer Terence’s romantic comedy Andria.

Connection between Terence and Abildgaard

In the painter’s version of the complicated dramatic intrigues, they begin when the central character, Simo, asks his black chef Sosia to pretend that he is hastening the marriage of Simo’s son.

The scene in the foreground links Terence and Abildgaard through a sequence of allusions: Terence was a slave who had been given his freedom, and in the picture Abildgaard based the black chef’s appearance on a medal that he himself designed on the occasion of the Danish ban on slavery.