Peter Nikolay
Arbo

Arbo Peter Nikolai (Arbo Peter Nicolai) is a Norwegian painter of historical genre, the author of many paintings based on the legends of Scandinavian mythology and significant events of Norwegian history. Peter Nikolay Arbo was born on June 18, 1831 in the Gulskogen estate near the town of Drammen in Norway to the family of Christian Fredrik Arbo and his wife Marie Christian von Rosen. The father of the future artist worked as a director of the city school. And brother Karl Oscar Arbo later became a military doctor and the first Norwegian researcher in the field of anthropology. Arbo's family lived in a house that was built in 1804 as a summer residence for the elder brother of his father, an industrialist and a lumber merchant. Peter Nicholas Arbo received his first artistic education at the art school of Frederick Ferdinand Helsted in Copenhagen in 1851-1852. After that, he studied at the Academy of Arts in Dusseldorf. From 1853 to 1855, he studied under Professor Karl Ferdinand Zona, and in 1857-1858 under the battleship and animal painter I.Ye. Hyunten. In addition, in Düsseldorf, he privately took lessons from the artist S. Mengelberg. During his studies, Arbo became friends with Adolf Tidemand and became a good friend of Hans Gude, both of whom became professors at the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf.
In 1861, Arbo returned to Norway, and the following year went on a trip abroad to France with the aim of improving his artistic skills. In 1864 in Paris, he wrote the first version of “Valkyrie”; he later used this motif several more times. The painting was first exhibited in 1866 in Stockholm, and it was immediately acquired by the Swedish king Charles XV. Now this work is in the National Museum in Stockholm. The Valkyrie version of 1869 is located at the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo, and is considered one of the best works of the artist.