Mathias Stoltenberg (21 July 1799 – 2 November 1871) was a Norwegian painter. He earned his living mostly as a travelling portrait painter and furniture restorer. His paintings were later rediscovered and presented at the

1914 Jubilee Exhibition The 1914 Jubilee Exhibition took place in Kristiania, Norway, from May 5 to October 11, 1914. It marked the centennial anniversary of the 1814 constitution and focused on industry and agriculture. The main location was the grounds of Frogner Manor ...

Kristiania Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

Personal life

Stoltenberg was born in

Tønsberg Tønsberg , historically Tunsberg, is a city and municipality in Vestfold og Telemark county, eastern Norway, located around south-southwest of Oslo on the western coast of the Oslofjord near its mouth onto the Skagerrak. The administrative c ...

, the son of merchant and politician

Carl Peter Stoltenberg Carl Peter Stoltenberg (28 January 1770 – 13 November 1830) was a Norwegian merchant, ship owner and politician. He was a representative at the Norwegian Constituent Assembly in Eidsvoll during 1814. Biography Carl Peter Stoltenberg was bo ...

and Karen Mathea Bull. He lost his sense of hearing as a child, and died in poverty in Vang in 1871.

Career

Stoltenberg studied carpentry in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

, where he also took lessons in portrait painting with Christian August Lorentzen. Back in Norway he earned his living as a travelling portrait painter and carpenter. After his father died in 1830, the family home in Tønsberg dissolved. Stoltenberg's travels covered large parts of Norway. During the 1830s and 1840s he visited

Gudbrandsdalen Gudbrandsdalen (; en, Gudbrand Valley) is a valley and traditional district in the Norwegian county of Innlandet (formerly Oppland). The valley is oriented in a north-westerly direction from Lillehammer and the lake of Mjøsa, extending towa ...

Dovre Dovre is a municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Gudbrandsdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Dovre. Other villages in Dovre include Dombås and Hjerkinn. The m ...

, the districts around Kristaniafjorden, Northern Norway,

Trondheim Trondheim ( , , ; sma, Tråante), historically Kaupangen, Nidaros and Trondhjem (), is a city and municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. As of 2020, it had a population of 205,332, was the third most populous municipality in Norway, and ...

Numedal Numedal () is a valley and a traditional district in Eastern Norway located within the county of Buskerud. It traditionally includes the municipalities Flesberg, Nore og Uvdal and Rollag. Administratively, it now also includes Kongsberg. G ...

Telemark Telemark is a traditional region, a former county, and a current electoral district in southern Norway. In 2020, Telemark merged with the former county of Vestfold to form the county of Vestfold og Telemark. Telemark borders the traditional ...

and

Østerdalen Østerdalen () is a valley and traditional district in Innlandet county, in Eastern Norway. This area typically is described as the large Glåma river valley as well as all its tributary valleys. It includes the municipalities Rendalen, Alvdal ...

. From the late 1840s he lived in Vang, Hedmark. His paintings were mostly portraits, and also landscapes. His art was recognized after the

Frogner Frogner is a residential and retail borough in the West End of Oslo, Norway, with a population of 59,269 as of 2020. In addition to the original Frogner, the borough incorporates Bygdøy, Uranienborg and Majorstuen. The borough is named af ...

in Kristiania, and he is represented in several museums. The

National Gallery of Norway The National Gallery ( no, Nasjonalgalleriet) is a gallery in Oslo, Norway. Since 2003 it is administratively a part of the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design. , the admission cost is 100 Norwegian kroner. History It was establish ...

has fifteen of his portraits and three landscape paintings, among them ''Utsikt til Vang kirke'' (View of Vang church) from 1863. Stoltenberg-Strømsø med den gamle kirke på Tangen

Stoltenberg-Strømsø med den gamle kirke på Tangen

Stoltenberg's paintings were first described by Hans Ødegaard in 1914, in ''Norske malere. Mathias Stoltenberg og Lars Hertervig''.Malmanger 1993: p. 348 Ødegaard was responsible for the exhibition of older Norwegian art at the 1914 Jubilee Exhibition. In addition to Stoltenberg, Lars Hertervig,

Johannes Flintoe Johannes Flintoe (1786/87, Copenhagen - 27 January 1870, Copenhagen) was a Danish-born painter of Norwegian ancestry. He is known for his landscapes, costume studies and historical scenes. His works play a significant role in the transition to rom ...

and

Peder Balke Peder Balke (November 4, 1804 – February 5, 1887) was a Norwegian painter. He is known for portraying the landscape of Norway in a romantic and dramatic manner. Biography Peder Andersen was born on the island of Helgøya, in Hedmark county, N ...

were other more or less forgotten painters who found their way into museums and galleries after this exhibition.

Henrik Grevenor Henrik Grevenor (27 May 1896 – 3 September 1937) was a Norwegian art history, art historian. Biography Henrik Gustav Rønneberg Grevenor was born in Stavanger; the son of Gustav Andreas Michaelsen and Karin Rønneberg. In 1916 he became a ...

wrote a biography of Stoltenberg in 1935, ''Mathias Stoltenberg. En kunstner mellom to tidsaldre'' (Mathias Stoltenberg. An artist between two epochs).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stoltenberg, Mathias 1799 births 1871 deaths People from Tønsberg 19th-century Norwegian painters 19th-century male artists Mathias