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By 1896 Copenhagen was a busy port city, and Amalienborg was the working royal residence, four palaces around an open square with guards on duty. Hammershoi painted almost none of that. He drained the light to a grey haze and emptied the square of people, leaving the one thing that couldn't move. That bronze rider is Frederik the Fifth, cast by the French sculptor Jacques Saly and unveiled in 1768. It took Saly 14 years, and the statue ended up costing more than all four palaces around it, which may be why Hammershoi kept it in the only patch of full sun. Everything else he let dissolve into weather.