KøbenhanskeMotiver_1587-1807

large amount of the exhibited views are engravings and etchings; for the major part of these it can be said that they have been done by professional engravers (who did not draw the original), working after other artists' models. In this pro­ cess of transference there are, of course, many possibilities of errors — the engraver may misunderstand, simplify or just reduce the quality of the motif. It is only necessary to compare Bruun's drawings with the engravings by Hans Qvist (see for instance cat. nos. 41 and 67) in order to realize how much can be lost in the process - it goes without saying that the opposite can also happen. Some of the views were printed in books; often the coming into existence of the books was a slow process, and thus there was the risk of the engravings being dated before they came out. In the case of Pontoppidan's Atlas dated models were used several times, and hence many illustrations are not representative of the time of the pub­ lishing. Especially in the older days some of the engravings were copied in infinite numbers, they "wandered" and could be found in Germany, Holland, France, Italy, etc., and on their long expeditions it was forgotten that they had been dated for a long time. In this way van Wick for example (cat. no. 3), was used far into the next century, and also the engraving of the siege from 1658 by Dahlberg (cat. no. 11) exists in an incomplete shape as the city profile beneath a map published by Matthias Seutter in the 18th century. Yet another source of errors is frequently found: the mixture of reality and projects. Often the artist knew of projects and building activities that had been started, and he then drew a building, for instance, in accordance with the approved plan which was perhaps to be changed later. This is true of Marselis' reproduction of the Chancellery (cat. no. 27). Leclerc's splendid vedutes of Christiansborg also have certain project-like characteristics, but furthermore they depict the Palace and its surroundings highly idealized (cat. nos. 56—59). In Tuscher's view down through Størrestræde (cat. no. 37) the entire left part of the picture is purely imaginary and only added in order to complete the view and make it more beauti­ ful. A painter like J. P. Lund also treated his motifs very freely, and among his works one also comes across the "capriccio" — where the topographical coherence has disappeared completely. One has to go far back into the history of pictorial art to find the first reproduc­ tion of a town or a building, but it took quite some time before the city as a motif advanced from what could be called the urban background and to becoming an independent motif. Like many other branches of the art of painting that of the view, too, originates in religious painting — the same is also true of portraiture,

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