Marie Luplau

Marie Luplau was a self-taught Danish painter who specialized in portraits, historical paintings, and scenes from the comedies of Ludvig Holberg. She was born in Varde, Denmark, in 1848, where her father was a village pastor. She arrived in Copenhagen around 1871 and frequented the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, but it is unclear whether she received formal training. From 1879 to 1882, she went abroad to develop her skills, visiting the Netherlands, Antwerp, and Paris, where she copied old masters. She returned to Denmark in 1882 and became a more versatile artist. In a number of paintings, such as The Battle of Copenhagen (1801) and The Awful Night (1807), she documented key events from the English Wars between 1801 and 1814. She also painted portraits of her friends and family, as well as landscapes and scenes from Holberg's plays. She was a professor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts from 1803 until her death in 1925. She followed Nicolai Abildgaard as the Academy Director from 1809 to 1810. She exercised great influence on the next generation of painters, such as Martinus Rørbye, whom she instructed.