The exhibition represented a wide range of trades and industries, giving a comprehensive impression of the professional level of those participating.

The industrial exhibitions imitated those held overseas, but all the products displayed were Danish and of high quality.

In 1839 Frederik VI died after an astoundingly long period on the throne. He was reigning Prince Regent between 1784 and 1808, during which he was active in the sweeping reforms of the late1700s. He subsequently reigned as king between 1808 and 1839.

Christian VIII, Frederik VI's cousin, was the last of a series of absolute monarchs in Denmark. The popular movements and liberatory discourse of the period brought an end to absolutism.

Hetsch – The Innovator of Decorative Arts

At the age of 27 the German, French-educated architect Gustav Hetsch (1788-1864) came to Denmark. His timing was perfect because the powerful Royal master builder, C.F. Hansen, was at the time looking for the assistance of a talented architect to decorate the interior of the rebuilt Christiansborg Palace.

In 1822 Hetsch was appointed professor of perspective, and in 1829 professor of architecture. He is often seen as the champion of classical traditions in Denmark, but he was equally open to new styles and taught a group of young, highly talented architects.

Hetsch's most lasting achievements were in the field of decorative art. Between 1828 and 1857 he was the artistic director of the Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Manufactory, which during this time launched a host of new designs. With Hetsch at the helm, a close collaboration between artists and scientists began. Professor Forchhammer, for example, conducted chemical colour experiments, which were used to improve production.

Hetsch's most inspired idea was that those actually making new designs should be advised by those with cultivated taste, thus making functionalism and streamlined design the guiding principles of the decorative arts of the period. With this in mind a committee was formed. Here Hetsch, together with a broad range of scientists, artists and cultural figures of the day, including H.C. Ørsted, judged and reviewed the trade and industry exhibitions of the 1830s with a view to strengthening the value and quality of the manufactory's products.

Lund's Brazilian Cave Studies

In 1832 the natural scientist Peter Wilhelm Lund (1801-1880) left his fatherland never to return again. Lund's zoological and botanical research, as well as his delicate health, had some years previously brought him to Brazil, where the mild climate held his developing tuberculosis at bay.

On an expedition to central Brazil Lund met the somewhat dubious Dane Peter Claussen, who was selling the fossilised bones he unearthed in the limestone caves of the region. It was here that Lund found the research field to which he was to dedicate his life. In 1836 he settled in the town of Lagoa Santa, where he lived until his death.

Within the first 10 years Lund had investigated approximately 200 caves. Bones were discovered in sixty of them, including those of the extinct glyptodont and giant sloth. Lund based his research on a flood theory, in which a series of worldwide natural disasters were held to have erased all traces of life. Later, however, he discovered the remains of several surviving species, which cast doubt on this theory.

Between 1835 and 1841 Lund sent a series of theses to the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters. These theses were illustrated by the Norwegian artist P.A. Brandt, who until his death in 1862 lived with Lund and acted as his secretary. P.W. Lund's palaeontological research – the study of life in the geological past – drew attention both in Denmark and abroad, and in 1845 he donated his collections to Christian VIII and thus his native country.

Andersen – Science Serving Poetry

Throughout his lifetime the author and fairytale writer Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) visited Danish manor houses. In the summer of 1830, between July 10-14, Andersen visited Hofmansgave Manor in Northern Funen. The invitation had been arranged by his good friend Edvard Collin.

Hofmansgave Manor was owned by the botanist Niels Hofman Bang (1776-1855). Bang specialised in algae and infusoria, and it was thanks to him that Andersen looked into a microscope for the first time, and was guided through the fantastic world revealed in a single drop of ditch-water.

Science fascinated Andersen. The teeming life he saw through the microscope that day made a strong impression, but it was not until many years later, in 1847, that this experience was captured in the fairytale The Drop of Water. He did, however, recount the experience in letters to friends, and his praise of the microscope reveals his understanding of the potential represented by such a scientific breakthrough.

The new technology of the period was a common theme in many of Andersen's stories and fairytales. In the travel account A Poet's Bazaar he gave an enthusiastic account of his first train journey in Germany. He also predicted the possibility of flight in the fairytale Thousand Years from Now, and few have posed with more enthusiasm in front of the miraculously new camera than H.C. Andersen.

Daguerreotype – A Photographic Technique

In January 1839 the French scene painter Louis-Jacques Mandé Daguerre (1787-1851) presented his new invention, the daguerreotype, at the Académie des Sciences in Paris. Not long after, the first pictures created using this new technique were seen in Copenhagen.

It was nothing less than a sensation that Daguerre was capable of fixing the clear and detailed image projected by light onto a plate. The revelation of this new technique made a strong impression on the archaeologist and consul general Christian Tuxen Falbe (1791-1849) who was living in Paris at the time. Falbe wrote immediately to Prince Christian Frederik, giving him a detailed account of the invention.

As early as September 1839 Falbe sent the first Giroux camera and some daguerreotypes of Paris home to the prince in Copenhagen. Here H.C. Ørsted presented them for the first time to the Association for the Dissemination of Natural Philosophy. Falbe himself had taken the pictures of Paris, and these, together with the camera they were taken with, were later donated to the Technical University by Prince Christian Frederik.

Although the long exposure time required by the daguerreotype made good results difficult to achieve, Falbe was able to foresee the invention's future significance in both the arts and sciences. During the years which followed, photographic techniques developed rapidly, and in the 1860s the daguerreotype was replaced by new photographic techniques.