Nicolai Abraham Abildgaard (1743 - 1809). Nicolai Abraham Abildgaard was a Danish neoclassical and royal history painter, sculptor, architect, and professor of painting, mythology, and anatomy at the New Royal Danish Academy of Art in Copenhagen, Denmark. Many of his works were in the royal Christiansborg Palace, Fredensborg Palace, and Levetzau Palace at Amalienborg. Nicolai Abraham Abildgaard was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, as the son of Anne Margrethe and Søren Abildgaard, a noted antiquarian draughtsman. Abildgaard was trained by a painting master before he joined the Royal Danish Academy of Art in Copenhagen, where he studied under the guidance of Johan Edvard Mandelberg and Johannes Wiedewelt. He won a series of medallions at the Academy for his brilliance from 1764 to 1767. The Large Gold Medallion from the Academy won in 1767 included a travel stipend, which he waited five years to receive. He assisted Professor Johan Mandelberg of the Academy as an apprentice around 1769 and for painting decorations for the royal palace at Fredensborg. These paintings are classical, influenced by French classical artists such as Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin. Mandelberg had studied in Paris under François Boucher. Although artists of that time usually journeyed to Paris for further studies, Abildgaard chose to travel to Rome, where he stayed from 1772 to 1777. He took a side trip to Naples in 1776 with Jens Juel. His ambitions focused in the genre of history painting. While in Rome, he studied Annibale Carracci's frescoes at the Palazzo Farnese and the paintings of Rafael, Titian, and Michelangelo. In addition he studied various other artistic disciplines and developed his knowledge of mythology, antiquities, anatomy, and perspective. In the company of Swedish sculptor Johan Tobias Sergel and painter Johann Heinrich Füssli, he began to move away from the classicism he had learned at the Academy. He developed an appreciation for the literature of Shakespeare, Homer, and Ossian. He worked with themes from Greek as well as Norse mythology, which placed him at the forefront of Nordic romanticism. He left Rome in June 1777 with the hope of becoming professor at the Academy in Copenhagen. He stopped for a stay in Paris and arrived in Denmark in December of the same year. In 1778, soon after joining the Academy, he was appointed to a professorship. He taught mythology and anatomy in addition to painting of the neoclassical style. Beyond his position at the Academy, he was very productive as an artist from 1777 to 1794. He produced not only monumental works, but also smaller pieces such as vignettes and illustrations. He designed Old Norse costumes. He illustrated the works of Socrates and Ossian. Additionally he did some sculpting, etching, and authoring. He was interested in all manners of mythological, biblical, and literary allusion. He taught some famous painters, including Asmus Jacob Carstens, sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen, and painters J. L. Lund and Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg. After his death, Lund and Eckersberg went on to become his successors as Academy professors. Eckersberg, referred to as the Father of Danish painting, went on to lay the foundation for the period of art known as the Golden Age of Danish Painting, as professor at the same Academy. As royal historical painter, Abildgaard was commissioned around 1780 by the Danish government to paint large monumental pieces, a history of Denmark, to decorate the entirety of the Knights' Room at Christiansborg Palace. It was a prestigious and lucrative assignment. The paintings combined historical depictions with allegorical and mythological elements that glorified and flattered the government. The door pieces depicted, in allegory, four historical periods in Europe's history. Abilgaard used pictorial allegory like ideograms, to communicate ideas and transmit messages through symbols to a refined public who was initiated into this form of symbology. Abildgaard's professor Johan Edvard Mandelberg supplied the decorations to the room. He made a failed attempt to be elected to the post of Academy Director in 1787 and was unanimously elected to the post two years later, serving as director during the period 1789-1791. He had the reputation for being a tyrant and for taking as many of the academy's monumental assignments as possible for himself. Abilgaard was also known as a religious freethinker and an advocate of political reform. In spite of his service to the government, he was hardly a great supporter of the monarchy or of the state church.