A Danish Master of the Golden Age Christen Schiellerup Købke (1810 – 1848) stands as one of Denmark’s most celebrated painters from the Golden Age, a period characterized by artistic fervor and national pride. Born in Copenhagen on May 26th, 1810, into a family of bakers—his father, Peter Berend Købke, headed the bakery at Kastellet, a formidable military fortification—Købke’s early life was marked by resilience. At just eleven years old, he suffered from rheumatic fever, an illness that profoundly impacted his physical health and spurred him to pursue artistic expression as a means of solac…