Christian II i fængslet på Sønderborg Slot

An old man in a beard grips the bars of a deep window, looking down at the sunlight and green world he will never reach; behind him his gaoler waits with the meal tray, and the cell’s stone rises into darkness. Carl Bloch (1834–1890) painted Christian II imprisoned at Sønderborg Castle in 1871, and it made his name at home: the moment chosen is the cruelest in Danish royal history, when Christian II — king of all Scandinavia, brought down in 1523 — began the twenty-seven years of captivity his uncle Frederick I sentenced him to, at first in the castle at Sønderborg, where the fallen king was held so secretly that for years Denmark did not know whether he lived. Bloch, the history painter of the national school, builds the picture on the one narrow ligature between the prisoner and the world; the canvas was an immediate success and entered the royal collections, and hangs in the Statens Museum for Kunst (National Gallery of Denmark).