Jens Juel (12 May 1745 – 27 December 1802) was a Danish painter, primarily known for his many portraits, of which the largest collection is on display at Frederiksborg Castle. He is regarded as the leading Danish portrait painter of the 18th century.
Early life and career
thumb|left|200px|Landscape with Northern Lights - Attempt to Paint the Aurora Borealis, 1790s.
Jens Juel was born on 12 May 1745, in the house of his mother's brother Johan Jørgensen, who was a school teacher in Balslev on the island of Funen. Jens Juel was the son of Vilhelmine Elisabeth Juel (January 1725 – March 1799), who served at Wedellsborg, and Jørgen Jørgensen (1724 – 4 June 1796), who was a schoolmaster in Gamborg, not far from Balslev, and he grew up in Gamborg.
Juel showed an interest in painting from an early age, and his parents sent him to be an apprentice of painter Johann Michael Gehrman in Hamburg, where he worked hard for five or six years and improved so much that he acquired a reputation as a painter of portraits, landscapes, etc. During the time of his studies, he could live off painting landscapes, portraits and genre pictures.
Through Bonnet, who had become an honorary member of the Danish Academy, his reputation reached Denmark. After a brief stay in Hamburg, where he met and painted a portrait of the poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, author of The Messiah, he returned to Copenhagen in 1780. Here he painted portraits for the royal house, nobility, and the well-to-do, as well as landscapes and genre paintings and was designated as the court painter.
On 4 April 1782, he was unanimously elected to be a member of the Danish Academy by Mandelberg, Weidenhaupt, and Abildgaard. He became the director of the Academy in 1795 and continued in the position until his death.