Peter Raadsig

Raadsig's 1850 painting of Ingólfr Arnarson's arrival in Iceland.

Johan Peter Raadsig (1806–1882) was a Danish painter, dealing with themes from Danish and Scandinavian history as well as from the New Testament.

In 1850 Raadsig made the painting "Ingolf tager Island i besiddelse", depicting Ingólfr Arnarson, the first Norse settler of Iceland, newly arrived on the site of what would become Reykjavík, commanding his high seat pillars to be erected.

The painting was made at the time when nationalist sentiment was rising in Iceland, a few years after the Icelanders' ancient general assembly, the Alþingi was re-established. Raadsig was, evidently, sympathetic to the Icelanders' aspiration to recover their historical heritage.

The painting is currently on public display at Viðeyjarstofa in Viðey (an island near Reykjavík), where a plaque explains that it was a gift to the City of Reykjavík from Eimskipafélag Íslands on the occasion of the 200th birthday of Reykjavík (1986).

Raadsig's paintings "Baptism of Jesus" and "Christ In Bondage", which are on display in the Boston Harbor Museum Boston Harbor Museum page are frequently made into posters ([1],[2],[3]).

External links

• "Marooned survivors of a shipwreck signalling to a passing ship" by Johan Peter Raadsig - auctioned by Bruun Rasmussen Bredgade, Copenhagen, on April 18, 2007
• Online reproduction of "The Shipwreck" as well as the 1845 "Italian Folk Dancing"