Valdemar Atterdag holding Visby to ransom, 1361

"Valdemar Atterdag holding Visby to ransom, 1361" is a historical painting (oil on canvas, signed in 1882) made by the Swedish historical painter Carl Gustaf Hellqvist (1851 – 1890).

This painting depicts how the Danish king Valdemar IV (a.k.a. Valdemar Atterdag) collects treasures from the people in the Gotlandic medieval town of Visby in the summer of 1361 AD. If the town's people do not fill the three big beer vats with gold, silver and other riches, Valdemar will see to that the whole town is burned to the ground. In Swedish this action is called "brandskattning", literally "fire-tax", but in English there appears to be no corresponding word — the nearest translation would be "pillage", "sacking" or "extortion".

In this great oil painting, king Valdemar Atterdag sits to the right, on an elevated red throne in front of the large St. Catherine's church, and observes the town dwellers as they run to fill the vats. At the centre of the painting, the "main characters" are seen—i.e. the mayor and his family. The mayor clenches his fist in wrath and looks at the Danish king, while his wife looks up to the sky, towards God. The wife plays the role of Virgin Mary, and she even has a tear drop in the corner of her eye. The whole setting is rather theatrical and very much romanticized as it was made in a period where national romanticism was very popular in northern Europe.

The painting was made in Munich in the 1880s, about half a millennium after the actual event of 1361, hence there are some incorrect details in the painting—though Carl Gustaf Hellqvist was very ambitious when making pictures that were true to the period—for instance the dachshund that is seen at the very left beer vat and the medieval houses in the background: The first dachshund was bred in the 16th century, "not" in the 14th century, thus an anachronism. For the houses in the background, there have never been any buildings like these in Visby—instead Hellqvist saw houses like these when he was travelling around in northern Germany. The man on the right appears to be Jewish although there never were any Jews in medieval Visby. The mother in the midsection has her hair uncovered, although 14th century married women usually had their hair covered. The king himself is wearing a large beard that was not in custom at the time. [The anachronisms about the Jewish man, the married woman and the king's beard comes from historian Michael Nordberg's "I kung Magnus tid" (Stockholm: Norstedts 1995, pp 182-183]

"Valdemar Atterdag holding Visby to ransom, 1361" or "Valdemar Atterdag imposes a levy on Visby, 1361" was awarded a gold medal in Vienna, Austria, in 1882 and is now a part of the collections of the National Museum of Fine Arts in Stockholm, Sweden.

The original Swedish title for this painting is "Valdemar Atterdag brandskattar Visby den 27 juli 1361" and its dimensions are 201 cm × 327 cm (79.2″ × 128.8″).

References

Rudnert, Sune. "I historiemålarens verkstad: Carl Gustaf Hellqvist – liv och verk". 1991. ISBN 91-7966-162-9.
Rudnert, Sune. "Carl Gustaf Hellqvist och hans historiemålning Valdemar Atterdag brandskattar Visby den 27 juli 1361". 1989.

External links

* [http://www.nationalmuseum.se The National Museum of Fine Arts in Stockholm, Sweden]