The Nathanson Family

The merchant Mendel Levin Nathanson and his wife are greeted by their children after having had an audience with the Queen. With this family portrait Nathanson marked how the simpler lifestyles and values of the middle classes now set the tone in Denmark. The children seem to have been interrupted mid-dance, but in truth this scene does not depict a random moment. The family parade themselves and their bourgeois ways almost as if on stage. Nathanson had another, personal objective: He would have wished to show that he, being Jewish, was fully integrated in society. A leading figure within the integration of Jews in Denmark, he was also a great patron of Danish art and culture. During the years 1812-20 he was Eckersberg’s most important patron.