Geskel Saloman

Geskel Saloman (1 April 1821 in Tønder – July 5, 1902 in Båstad) was a Danish–Swedish portrait and genre painter, brother of Siegfried Saloman and chief medical officer for the Danish army Nota Saloman. Soloman was one of the Bedřich Smetana's closest friends and the one who painted in 1837 one of the three existing portraits of the founder of the Czech national music when he was only 34 years old.

Geskel Saloman (née Solomon) was the son of merchant Isak Soloman, who later became cantor of the Jewish community in Copenhagen (1782–1848), and Veilchen Geskel (1787–1836). When his parents moved to Copenhagen, he entered the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts, where he won the 1846 small silver medal. He was a pupil of Johan Ludwig Lund and has exhibited since 1843, among them the painter Conrad Christian Bøhndel portrait and Thomas Overskou portrait for which he won the Neuhausenske Præmier in 1848.

A short stay in Gothenburg led to him to become a resident in Sweden from 1850, where he received citizenship. In Gothenburg he enjoyed great reputation as a portrait painter, but also did some genre paintings which he partially exhibited in Copenhagen. He was also a character interested in giving drawing lessons, being offered a position as teacher in 1871 at the Göteborgs Musei Rit-och Målarskola, now Konsthögskolan Valand; becoming a member of the Art Academy in Stockholm from 1874. There, he became professor at the academy and the royal portrait painter.

After resiging from the Academy, he became a highly sought portrait painter in Sweden, but performed ever greater tasks, partly in genre pictures and later in historical compositions, or rather what we call "the historical genre", preserving even in his old age his freshness in painting. One of his earlier works, En Væverske med sit Barn, exhibited in Copenhagen in 1858, was given the honorable mention at the Salon de Paris, where he studied under the guidance of Thomas Couture between the years 1854-1855. From 1860 to 1863 he lived in the city of Algiers.

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