LONDON.- Sotheby’s London sale of 19th
Century
European Paintings on Wednesday, 2 June, 2010, is to include an
important work
by Norwegian artist Christian Krohg (1852-1925) of Leif Eriksson
discovering
America. Estimated at £150,000-250,000, the painting will spearhead the
Norwegian component of the Scandinavian section of the sale. Leif
Eriksson was a
Norse explorer (c.970 – c.1020) regarded as the first European to land
in North
America, nearly five hundred years before Christopher Columbus.
In
November 1891 newspapers in Kristiania (now Oslo) announced that The
Leif
Eriksson Memorial Association was to stage a competition for Norwegian
artists
to execute a large painting of Eriksson for the Chicago World’s Fair of
1893, to
coincide with a journey taken by the ‘Viking’ ship, a replica of the
‘Gokstad’
(excavated in 1880 after a ship burial centuries earlier), from Norway
to the
fair. The fair celebrated the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’
arrival
in the New World in 1492.