| A young artist (Ditlev Blunck) considers a sketch in a mirror | |
| Other Language 1: | Danish |
| Other Title 1: | En ung kunstner (Ditlev Blunck) betragter en skitse i et spejl |
| Medium: | oil on canvas |
| Height Metric: | 98 |
| Width Metric: | 85 |
| Metric Unit: | cm |
| Imperial Unit: | in |
| City: | København |
| Museum: | Statens Museum for Kunst |
A young artist (Ditlev Blunck) considers a sketch in a mirror is a painting by Wilhelm Bendz from 1826; it is one of the series of Danish Golden Age portraits of artists.[1]
The painting shows young Ditlev Blunck taking a break to examine a sketch for a portrait of George Valtin Sonne painting his brother, engraver Carl Edvard Sonne,[2] by holding it up in front of a mirror to see if the composition works.
The painting was executed in 1826 at time when Wilhelm Bendz was preoccupied by artists' new role; no longer craftsmen but instead considered intellectuals, artists in the modern sense of the word. During the 1820s he painted a series of portraits of artists at work. Here the model is Bendz's fellow student, Ditlev Blunck, in the process of painting a portrait of the painter Jørgen Sonne.
The painting shows a time when painters took themselves seriously as working artists. The image of Blunck standing in a packed room surrounded by his tools, paintbox, palette and easel, skull and sketchpad, signals that his work is serious, and requires thorough study before execution.