From Møllendal

This 1812 view from Møllendal, the valley east of Bergen where the river Møllendalsfjorden flows toward the city, was painted during Dahl's early years at the Copenhagen Academy when he was still maintaining close connections to his Bergen homeland. The Møllendal valley provided a different quality of Bergen landscape from the dramatic harbor views — a more intimate, cultivated terrain where mills and farms occupied the riverbank beneath the surrounding mountains. These early Bergen-area landscapes show Dahl developing the combination of topographic precision and atmospheric sensitivity that would characterize his mature work, learning to see his childhood landscape with the analytical eye that academic training was providing.

The painting reveals a developing artist working to capture the particular character of the Bergen landscape, with attention to the interplay of cultivated land and the surrounding mountainous terrain.