Anton Melbye (1818 Copenhagen - 1875 Paris) Calm harbour with European sailing ships, sailing steamers and Chinese junks Atmospheric, bright, detailed work by the important Danish marine painter, created in 1860 at the height of his artistic career. Melbye found his motifs on numerous sea voyages from 1841 onwards, which took him to the Mediterranean, Morocco and the Bosporus. Melbye studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen from 1838 and was a private pupil of Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg. Melbye made his debut at an Academy exhibition in 1840 and won the Academy's Neuhausen Prize in 1843. From 1847 to 1858 he was based in Paris, where Camille Pissaro was Melbye's pupil from 1855 to 1857 and Emperor Napoleon III was one of his clients. In 1855, Melbye took part in the Universal Exhibition in Paris, followed by those in London (1862), Paris (1867) and Vienna (1873). He became a member of the Copenhagen Academy in 1858, a Knight of the Danish Order of Danebrog in the same year and a professor in 1862. Melbye had already had a veritable circle of collectors and wealthy patrons in Hamburg and the then Danish town of Altona since the 1840s and exhibited regularly at the Kunstverein; from 1860 to 1871 he also lived most of the time in Hamburg, where the first solo exhibition was dedicated to him in 1872. Oil on canvas; signed and dated on the lower left. 1860. 35 cm x 51 cm. Frame. General reference: exhibition cat. "Melbye. Painter of the Sea", Historische Museen Hamburg/Altonaer Museum 2017, 2nd edition 2020. Provenance: North German private collection. Oil on canvas. Signed dated 1860.