Guanuji's History Rambling

uhhh...recently (for an entire year) I've been hyperfixating on mister Hans Christian Andersen and partly with his best friend/crush/obsession Edvard Collin. Just for character design purposes I've been compiling images of Andersen's circle to study their faces (I'm normal i swear). I didn't know this but THE H. Topsøe-Jensen actually already compiled his iconography before. So I didn't have to search that hard. Still, this took me a long time to compile so hope someone finds this interesting or useful 😚 You will have to deal with my rambling captions, sorry not sorry.

circa 1830 (22 years old)
William Bendz
H.C. Andersens Fond museumsstøtte

I only found out this was in the Andersen house museum because I was watching a vlog (timestamp 10:07) and spotted it, only THEN deciding to google lens it. The auction site I was looking at didn't have any info, I thought it was just some unconfirmed sketch 😭

1833 (25 years old)
Jorgen Roed
Photo by Lars Bjørnsten

Check out Lars Bjørnsten's cool Andersen centric website here!!

Drawn the same year as his wife Henriette Thyberg's portrait, after their engagement I think.

Clearer version with visible signature, found in "H. C. Andersens brevveksling med Edvard og Henriette Collin, Bind II"

I was reading Edvard's and Andersen's letters as I usually do, and I saw he casually mentions he was painted by Constantin Hansen, a Danish golden age painter??

"Const. Hansen has painted my portrait at this time, and Roed has painted Jette's; both portraits resemble each other very well.” Edvard to Andersen, December 18th, 1833

Of course Topsøe-Jensen has already recorded this, but there's no other record of this painting existing today. Is it lost, destroyed, in a private collection? His wife Jette's portrait is pretty easy to find online, I wonder why his got lost. Whoever has this painting I'm coming for you! There's no other painting of Edvard when he was this young, if it exists it would be sooo helpful to learning how to draw him. I'm half tempted to just paint it myself by referencing Hansen's other paintings.

circa 1835 (27 years old)
drawn by ??? photo by ???
MutualArt

Cannot find anything about where the hell this drawing is or who it's by. I think it's really well done though which is frustrating.

1835 (27 years old)
Wilhelm Marstrand
The Royal Library, Copenhagen

I stole this image from Jens Andersen's biography, but you can find a faded version of it in this Anderseniana article. I didn't take note of it before, but did Marstrand get so frustrated he scribbled over the drawing? I can relate.

circa 1835 (27 years old)
Fritz Petzholdt
Lauritz.com

Did you miss it? He's apparently the man smoking in the leftmost window!

"It is my brother-in-law Edvard Collin who is standing in the open window, which is the middle one in the corner room in the newer and brick-built part of the building, which room was a living room..." - Adolph Drewsen

Found this quote in "H.C. Andersen som sangfugl ved Det Collinske Hus", page 6 of "Familiens Viser, samlede 1847, af A. Drewsen". You can find the pdf easily on google😊 It's about the many songs written and sang in the Collin house, which Edvard and Andersen took part in of course.

1842 (34 years old)
Wilhelm Marstrand
Photo by Lars Bjørnsten

Henriette "Jette" Collin né Thyberg, Edvard's wife, on the left.

1855 (47 years old)
Wilhelm Marstrand
Artnet

1860 (52 years old)
Photographed by Frederik Ferdinand Petersen
Samlinger.dk

1862-1863 (54-55 years old)
Carl Bloch, in Rome
Bruun Rasmussen Auctioneers

circa 1863 (55 years old)
With his children, Louise and Jonas, and wife, Henriette

Photo by Lars Bjørnsten

1863 (55 years old)
Photographed by Michele Mang, Rome
The Royal Library

1864 (56 years old)
Photographed by Theodor Collin, his brother
Samlinger.dk

1860-1870
Photographed by Theodor Collin
arkiv.dk

Business card photo: edvard collin, oval masking

circa late 1860s
Photographed by Harald Paetz
Samlinger.dk

1876 (68 years old)
Frederik Vermehren

Stole this from Inga Nalbandian né Collin's book, "H. C. Andersen og de, der 'mishandlede' ham: en Karakteristik" (H.C. Andersen and those who "mistreated" him: a characteristic) , page 9. This is basically one of Edvard's grandchildren who is reflecting on the crude way Andersen was talked about and dismissed by her relatives while growing up (she was born after he died). I think there was already a dislike of the way Andersen's legacy would intertwine with the Collin family reputation (will add a source if I find it later) and her brother published a response against her!

Big big thanks to Claus Rønlev and his website where you can find the scanned pdfs of the books mentioned :)

1870-1886
Photographed by Theodor Collin
arkiv.dk

Smoking in his garden in Ellekilde. The previously mentioned book by Inga Collin made the claim that Andersen was never invited to this beloved summer home. This was not true, he's invited by Jette many times, but they both had to agree that the poor weather and lifestyle out there was not suited to him (he was by now very sensitive to his environment).

"...in June it is my intention to be in "Rolighed", then you will long since be in your new summer home at Ellekilde ; Now let the husband and sons be careful with the boring sailboats out on the rolling water. I will naturally come out to you one day and probably the only cold and stormy day, because it only exists there when I pay a visit." Andersen to Jette Collin, May 8th, 1871

More info about Ellekilde.

1870-1886
Photographed by Theodor Collin

I can never get used to these types of pipes. They're all over Constantin Hansen's painting, why the hell are they so long?

circa 1870-1880
Photo by Svend Engelbrechtsen
arkiv.dk

1880 (72 years old)
Photo by Susanne Brandt
arkiv.dk

Edvard with his son Jonas Collin, a zoologist, who Andersen had a infamously rocky relationship with before becoming real besties later in life. I enjoy this photo very much, maybe it's the spongebob ass butterfly net.