The present painting, one of Balke’s most imposing pictures painted on a small scale, was probably painted in the mid to late 1840s. It is one of his earliest known depictions of a subject taken from the north of Norway painted on a small scale and perhaps his earliest known work in which the unconventional technique of his full maturity are discernible. During the 1850-70s, Balke produced a number of small scale paintings, not larger than a postcard, of subjects taken from the north of Norway, which have become the hallmark of his oeuvre.

The mountain of Stetind appears frequently in Balke´s paintings when he seeks to emphasize nature’s overwhelming superiority to man. Perhaps his most famous picture depicts this imposing and daunting mountain now in the National Museum of Art, Oslo (fig. 1).

The artist also had a photograph taken of himself with this painting on his easel. Stetind, 1392 meters high, is situated at the bottom of Stefjorden, circa 50 km southeast of Narvik. In 2002, it was promoted as the national mountain of Norway.

Peder Balke is one of the most extraordinary and original figures in the history of Norwegian art. His pictures are remarkable for their pared down conception of form, powerful empathy with nature, monochrome coloring and painterly technique.

In April 1832, Balke undertook a sea journey to the north of Norway. The impressions he gathered on this voyage had an enormous influence on his attitude towards nature and on the development of his art. Much later in life Balke summoned up this journey:

‘No pen is capable of describings the grandiose and enchanting impression made on the eye and the mind by the wealth of natural beauty and the incomparable situations, an impression that not only overwhelmed me then and there but also had a decisive influence on the whole of my life, in that I have never, either abroad or in other parts of our country, had occasion to see anything equally exalting and inspiring as that which I saw on this journey to Finnmark; for in these northern districts the beauty of nature takes the leading part, while human beings, the children of nature, obviously play only secondary role.’¹

1. A Norwegian Painter in the Louvre. Peder Balke (1804-1887) and His t.mes s, exhibition catalogue, Paris 2006, p. 31.