The conspirators are leaving the barn, Finderup Lade, after the murder of Erik Klipping 1286. Painted by Otto Bache 1882. Frederiksborg Slot inv. nr. A 8, 254 x 377 cm

The conspirators leaving Finderup Lade on horseback

Frederiksborg Castle presents a painting with blood and drama

The Murderer remains unknown

One of the best-known historic paintings at Frederiksborg Castle is depicting the last murder of a king in the history of Denmark which was never solved.

Escape from the scene of crime

During hunting near Viborg the Danish king, Erik Klipping, had been sought shelter for the night in a barn on the moors of Jutland and was taken by surprise by a group of men, who stabbed him to death. The artist, Otto Bache, portrays the murderers flight from the barn burning in the background. In the foreground the two horsemen have stopped their horses and are looking back towards the scene of crime.

Stains of blood and a sinister atmosphere

It is obvious that a dramatic event has taken place. The horses are stained with blood, and the horsemen are marked by defiance and expressions of rage. The very murder has not been portrayed, only indirectly by a sinister atmosphere. The colour scheme is dark and sombre, and above the burning barn 13 black birds are seen. In the heather to the left lies a bloody carcass of a horse, as a reference to the killed king, and behind a hillock with an overturned crucifix a peasant with an expression of horror is seen.

A national disaster

The picture is an expression of the artist's perception of the incident, namely that the murder of a king was a calamity for the country. Due to the national point of view the picture has become a monument of the history seen as National Romanticism, which characterized the National Museum in the years after being established in 1878.

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