school of David, and the portrait painter of the aristocracy,
Stoltenberg was the painter of the more everyday official class
throughout the country in the good old Biedermeier days.
He evidently received his schooling in Denmark, since his
pictures betray a most obvious relationship to the portrait
art of the Danes Eckersberg, Köbke, and Jensen. The old
clergymen and county judges in their robes of office and
their elderly ladies in elegant fluted bonnets fastened with
silk bows beneath their chins--such was his clientele. By
preference he paints rather small portrait busts to be hung
above the damask-covered mahogany sofa in the living-
room, in full face so that all the features stand out, open
and straightforward countenances with a friendly, artless
expression and a wide-awake air, but with the furrows of
time frankly marked about the mouth and eyes. Stoltenberg
is a keen observer with a telling grasp of character, and in
the great range of his portraits one would search in vain
for mannerisms or repetitions. It can by no means be denied
that his simplicity and awkwardness in certain of the pictures
approach dilettanteism and that his draughtsmanship often
reveals its weaknesses. What saves him, nevertheless, is his
fresh, joyous sense of color, his juxtaposition of pure, clear
pigments in dresses, scarfs, ribbons, and flowers, collocations
which in all their unexpected innocence at times produce a
positively charming effect. Stoltenberg is one of those
painters who confirm the fact, which, to tell the truth, we are
glad to have confirmed, that the strength of our painting lies
in color.

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