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RICHARD REDDING ANTIQUES |
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RICHARD REDDING ANTIQUES |
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Johan Kristian Berger (1803-71) “An Anglo-Swedish skirmish in the English Channel, 1704” Oil on canvas, signed and dated 1857 96.5 x 148.5 cm. Berger’s superb historical naval scene describes a somewhat obscure incident in Anglo-Swedish history during 1704. At that time England was deeply committed to the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-13) while Sweden was equally preoccupied in its campaign against Russia during the Great Northern War (1700-21). Thus in no sense were Sweden and England at war with another and neither were their individual conflicts connected. However on 28th July 1704, a Swedish convoy commanded by Gustav von Psilander in his 50-gun flagship ‘Oland’ sailing off the coast from Orford Ness, Suffolk came under attack from a squadron of nine English ships commanded by Sir William Whetstone. The latter attacked because the Swedish fleet refused to salute the colours of the English warship, which proved a frequent occurrence during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The skirmish lasted four and a half hours but resulted inconclusively so the two squadrons parted and the Swedes, without having compromised their honour, continued on their way. The subject was ideal for Johan Kristian (also recorded as Johann Christian) Berger who was born and brought up in Sweden, followed a military career before turning to art and subsequently studying and working in England. Berger was born at Linkoeping 1803, the son of city doctors Johan Ulrik Berger and Maria Christina Lönder. He served in the Swedish army as an officer rising to the rank of Captain before he resigned. In 1830 he began attending art classes at the Stockholm Academy but in an endeavour to escape the conventional academic tradition and to discover an independent artistic style, Berger left his homeland and continued his studies in Paris and London. During a prolonged stay in France and particularly in England he developed a flair for marine and landscape painting and above all fell under the influence of England’s greatest artist J. M. W. Turner whose work inspired Berger’s dramatic palette and use of chiaroscuro. In addition to oils Berger was an adept watercolourist and made numerous pen and ink and pencil studies. While in England he exhibited at the British Institution, 1837 and ’39 and was in addition from 1840 a member of the Academy of Free Artists. Having spent many years abroad he returned home as one of the country’s foremost marine painters of which many portrayed or Anglo and Swedish subjects. In that genre he later developed a lifelike form but soon arrived at a more uniform style, which at times had a sombre, sometimes a very blue-green cast together with glaring contrasts between shadows and highlights, which gave his work a certain boisterousness. He portrayed a number of scenes in and around Stockholm and also during his travels painted views of Paris, London and Dublin. Berger was active in the capital’s religious life and volunteered as Secretary in the Evangelical Alliance’s Swedish branch from 1853. Without formally being a Baptist he was a reader in the Stockholm Missions Association as well as a member of the Swedish Temperance Society’s Board. He died in Uppsala on 27th October 1871. Much of his work is now housed at the National Museum Stockholm of which there are at least five oils including a winter scene in Stockholm and a view of “Götu Kanals Öppnande I Mem” of 1832. The museum also owns many of his watercolours and drawings, which portrayed a variety of subjects from landscapes and marine views around Paris, London and Dublin as well as Middle Eastern figures and several portrait studies such as one of Maximilian Hertig Av Leuchtenberg, Senare Romanovskij. An oil view of Golland by him is owned by the National Gallery Oslo while a bold and evocative oil of ships in Portsmouth Harbour is housed as the Lansmuseum Linkoeping. |