Fritz Petzholdt

He spent most of his artistic life in Italy, where he painted refined landscapes in a light colour palette but died early, possibly by way of suicide.

After completing an apprenticeship as a house painter, he attended the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts from 1824 where he studied under Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, known as the father of the Golden Age of Danish Painting spanning the first half of the 19th century.

In Rome he joined the Danish artists colony which had formed in the city with Bertel Thorvaldsen as its centre.

He made excursions to the Roman countryside—to places such as Tivoli, Subiaco and Olevano—as well as longer trips south to Naples, Sicily and Corfu.

From Italy he continued to Greece, a destination only Martinus Rørbye had visited before him among the Danish Golden Age painters.