Copy of an Italian Landscape by Jan Both

Copy of an Italian Landscape by Jan Both, made around 1813 in Copenhagen, continues Dahl's systematic program of Old Master study during his academic training years. Jan Both was a Dutch Golden Age painter who had traveled to Italy and developed a genre of Italianate landscape with warm golden light that became influential throughout Northern European painting. By copying Both, Dahl was absorbing not just compositional and technical lessons but the specific visual vocabulary of Italian landscape filtered through Dutch eyes — a particularly relevant model for a Northern European painter who would himself make the Italian journey several years later. The copy demonstrates the transmission of landscape knowledge through the copying tradition that connected successive generations of painters.

The copy demonstrates Dahl's careful study of the Italianate landscape tradition, with its warm golden light and classical landscape compositions. The exercise in copying helped develop the technical foundations for his mature landscape style.