MET acquires Købke
December 10 2025
Picture: MET
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
I'm slow to news (which has been picked up here by La Tribune de l'art) that the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has acquired Christen Købke's portrait of his sister Sophie Købke.
According to the museum's website:
Christen Købke was one of eleven siblings. He portrayed his elder sister Sophie in the parlor of the Kastellet, the fortress of Copenhagen, where their father served as overseer of the bakery. The casual refinement of Sophie’s middle-class respectability is of a piece with the up-to-date Biedermeier style of the setting. This painting served a dual function: first, as an independent portrait and, second, as the model for the far larger portrait of another sister, Conradine Feilberg (private collection).
