Press release -
A Festive Fischer – Painting Sold for DKK 2.1 Million
The autumn’s international auction at Bruun Rasmussen in Copenhagen got off to a festive start Tuesday afternoon. Here Jesper Bruun Rasmussen sold Paul Fischer’s iconic painting of “The King’s Birthday” from 1925, where the Danish Royal Guard marches down the pedestrian shopping street Strøget in red dress uniforms. The painting was sold for DKK 2.1 million (€ 370,000 including buyer’s premium) to a private Danish art collector.
“We had high expectations going into Tuesday’s auction, where we presented a series of paintings by the Copenhagen painter, Paul Fischer, in connection with the 850th anniversary of the founding of Copenhagen. A great deal of attention was placed on the iconic painting of “The King’s Birthday”, which was purchased by a Danish private art collector,” says Julie Arendse Voss, head of the department for fine art at Bruun Rasmussen Auctioneers.
No one has depicted the city’s streets, buildings and public life as eminently as Paul Fischer, who is considered the quintessential Copenhagen painter. His atmospheric paintings are an illustration of the time around 1900, where the city had gotten rid of its surrounding fortifications and was turning into a modern metropolitan area with new means of transportation, large crowds of people and a flourish of building activity. The topography is easily recognizable, and as a backdrop for his images Fischer often focused on the streets and open squares of the old city centre between Kongens Nytorv and Rådhuspladsen.
Included in the auction was also a portrait of a beautiful, young lady in a horse-drawn carriage on the way out of the city across the bridge Dronning Louises bro, which Fischer painted in 1902. It was sold for DKK 750,000 (€ 130,000 including buyer’s premium).
The King’s Birthday
Paul Fischer:” The King's birthday. The Royal Guard in Red Dress Uniform on Østergade.” Signed and dated Paul Fischer 1925. Oil on canvas. 150 x 150 cm. Estimate: DKK 1.5-2 million (€ 200,000-270,000). Sold for DKK 2.1 million (€ 370,000 including buyer’s premium).
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Bruun Rasmussen Auctioneers is one of Scandinavia’s leading international auction houses, and one of Denmark’s oldest. It all started on 6 October 1948, when Arne Bruun Rasmussen conducted the first traditional auction in the saleroom at Bredgade 33 in Copenhagen. Today, Jesper Bruun Rasmussen stands at the helm of the family-run business together with the third generation of the family, his son Frederik and daughter Alexa, and the company’s CEO Jakob Dupont.
In 2004, the first online auction was launched, and today the auction house has expanded to include departments in Copenhagen and Aarhus and representations in Sweden, Germany, France, Belgium, Luxemburg, Spain, Italy, Thailand and the US. About 100,000 lots are put up for auction each year at the traditional auctions and daily online auctions. Here you can bid on everything from art, antiques, modern design and jewellery to books, coins, stamps, wine and weaponry.
