Painting of Denmark's so-called Golden Age (1800–50) is a highlight in Danish art. During the first decades of the 19th century, the first Copenhagen-based school of painting arose with painter C.W. Eckersberg as the dominant artist and the teacher of most of the younger painters at the Royal Academy in Copenhagen. In this period the Danish painters turned from literary and historic themes toward subjects of everyday life and the study of nature.

Over the last few decades, Golden Age painters like Eckersberg, Martinus Rørbye, Christen Købke and J. Th. Lundbye have gained increased recognition in the U.S. as art museums and galleries like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago have acquired a number of their important works.

Kasper Monrad, chief curator at Statens Museum for Kunst, leads this lecture. He's a specialist in Danish painting of the 19th century, and he was the Danish curator of the exhibitions The Golden Age of Danish Painting in 1993–94 (Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) and Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg 1783–1853 in 2003 (The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.).