special exhibition
Village wedding - Feeling or sense?
Love, emotions and romance are strongly associated with the modern wedding. But how was marriage in the middle of the 1800th century, when the world was completely different? A time when work filled the majority of life, simple illnesses could have fatal consequences, and famine could strike an entire village. Was there time and place for romance here?
If you play with such thoughts, listen to old man in the almshouse, where he gives good and 'very useful' wedding and love omens. Hear the thoughts of the bride-to-be in the fine living room, where she goes and thinks about the future, her new husband and whether she can live up to the skills of her predecessor. Visit the workshop, where the husband-to-be wanders around with a sea of worries about his new wife and the children from the first marriage, or pass by the barn, where a couple of young lads have settled down with a bottle of brandy while they have a chat about love, young life and a possible marriage.
In this year's special exhibition, we invite you to a wedding on the farm, where the widower Niels is getting married to his new wife Ane. Everyone in the village is invited, and everything is set for the big feast – good food, a festive atmosphere and plenty of beer and brandy. But what is the background for Niels taking a new wife, shortly after losing the first one? Has he just fallen madly in love with Ane, or is there something else entirely behind it?
Dive into the traditions, the whimsical acts and get an insight into what a peasant wedding meant some 200 years ago.
Wedding scene from Dragør, Amager by Johan Julius Exner.
The exhibition can be experienced at the open-air museum De gamle Huse from 1 May – 29 September + week 42 and 43. At Reventlow-Museet Pederstrup we tell the story of the wedding between the manor couple Christian and Frederikke Reventlow.
AI photo of bride and groom, created for the occasion. The romantic view of time originates from contemporary artists such as Jens Juel and CW Eckersberg. They excelled in portraying the peasant idyll as a tribute to the natural, family life and the simple. A counterpoint to crisis-stricken Denmark. England had seized the fleet and bombed Copenhagen, and Denmark was bankrupt.
In the aftermath, a widespread national feeling arose. And what is more Danish than the good life in the countryside. The artists turned up the village idyll. Clean, happy and well-nourished peasants wearing their best and most colorful clothes under a sunny blue sky characterized the motifs.
Yes, one might be tempted to call it 1800th-century AI – Artistic Intelligence, where nothing was as it seemed.
On Tuesdays in July and two Sundays in late summer, you can join us on a tour, where we naturally focus on weddings in the 1800s and what it meant back then.
In the best wedding style, the tours naturally end with coffee and cake.