# Portrait of Frederik Sødring [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [KØBKE, Christen]() - Date: 1801-1850 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 42 x 38 cm ## Commentary A plant is a significant presence in the portrait that the leading Danish painter of the age, Christen Købke, painted of his friend Frederik Sødring \(1809-62\) on his birthday in 1832. The smiling, ruddy cheeked landscape painter is seated palette in hand. The vigorous ivy in a pot behind him has a multiple purpose, standing for the friendship that binds artist and sitter, and the creativity that enables him to mediate between nature and the ideal - represented respectively by the pictures of a cow and of Roman ruins pinned to the wall. Once again, while adopting the organic image of creativity common to Romanticism, Købke's picture presents a wholesome, outgoing impression of the artist's life. ## Related artworks - [A View of the Square in the Kastel Looking Towards the Ramparts]() - [Portrait of Adolphine Købke, Sister of the Artist]() - [Self-Portrait]() - [The Garden Steps Leading to the Artist's Studio on Blegdammen]() - [View from a Window in Toldbodvej Looking Towards the Citadel in Copenhagen]() - [View of a Street in Østerbro outside Copenhagen. Morning Light]() - [View of One of the Lakes in Copenhagen]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()