Ibsen spent the first 15 years of his life in Skien. This is where he was born, baptized and educated. It was also here that, at the age of 13, he wrote what many consider to be his first piece of fiction.

Skien 1828-1834

1828

On March 20, Henrik Johan Ibsen is born in Stockmanngården at Handelstorget in Skien. His parents are Marichen Cornelia Martine, née Altenburg (1799-1869) and Knud Plesner Ibsen (1797-1877). His older brother dies just three weeks after Henrik's birth, and Henrik grows up as the eldest of five siblings.

On March 28, Henrik Ibsen is baptized in the family home.

1831

The Ibsen family moves to Altenburggården a little further up the city on the corner of Prinsens gate. They take over the house from Henrik's grandmother.

1833

His father Knud Ibsen's business is doing well, and he buys the Venstøp farm in Gjerpen as a summer home and supplement to the farm in the city.

The sources are not unambiguous, but it can be assumed that Henrik received private tuition at home from a tutor or governess. It is said that he was able to read the Bible at the age of 6-7.

It is uncertain whether he began attending the public school in Skien as a five-year-old in 1833, but some sources indicate that he did. His father, Knud Ibsen, paid for his schooling at the public school.  

Henrik Ibsen's Writings (UiO) says the following about this: "August 1833 Henrik Ibsen is enrolled at the public school, where he attends up to and including the first quarter of 1835, and where he first receives instruction in reading, writing, religion, elementary geography and natural science and from the second class learns German, history, geometric drawing, style practice and natural history".

1834

The major and lasting financial problems for his father Knud Ibsen begin in these years, and he takes out large loans and mortgages all his properties.

1835

Knud Ibsen has to sell his properties in the city. The family moved to Venstøp, which Knud Ibsen still owned, and lived there until 1843. During his years at Venstøp, Henrik was taught by his father's friend and neighbor Christen Lund, who ran a private school on his farm. Lund also taught Severin Løvenskiold's children and at the school Løvenskiold had set up for workers' and clerks' children at Fossum ironworks.

The farm at Venstøp today. Photo: Sigurd Svela.

1841

Henrik starts at a new private school in the Scheele farm in Skien. Johan Hansen and W. F. Stockfleth, candidates in theology, taught there. Henrik learned "general school subjects" including German and also took private lessons in Latin. This is the year Henrik turns 13, and it is only from then on that there is reliable documentation that he was taught at a school.

In this year, the then 13-year-old Henrik Ibsen wrote the school play "A Dream", which is often considered to be his earliest fictional text. The school play can be read in its entirety at the University of Oslo here. According to Vinduet, Gyldendal's literary journal, Ibsen made the following footnote when reviewing the proofs when "A Dream" was to be republished in Norsk Forfatter-Lexikon in 1889:

"This Norwegian style put me at odds with my excellent teacher Stockfleth for some time. Stockfleth had got it into his head that I had taken the style from some book and said so in class. I refuted his erroneous assumption in a more energetic way than he liked."

Henrik Ibsen

Henrik also had an obvious talent for drawing and painting, and he learned pencil drawing at a Sunday school in the city in the years 1840-41. He also received some instruction in oil painting from the painter Mikkel Mandt.

1843

This spring, Henrik Ibsen turns 15 and leaves school. During the summer months (June-July) he receives confirmation classes. On October 1, he is confirmed in Gjerpen church.  

Due to pressure from his creditors, Knud Ibsen had to sell Venstøp at a forced auction in March 1843, but was allowed to live on the farm until December. The family then moved to an apartment building in Snipetorpgata 27 in the city, which was owned by Knud Ibsen's half-brother, Christopher Blom Paus.

On November 16, Henrik Ibsen travels with the boat "Lykkens Prøve" to Grimstad to become an apprentice pharmacist at J.A. Reimann. Henrik visited the family's new home in Skien on several occasions while living in Grimstad.

Ibsen and Skien later in life

1845

Henrik Ibsen makes a four-week visit to Skien in June to attend his brother Johan's confirmation. Henrik leaves Grimstad on the steamer "Prins Carl" on June 20 and returns on July 24 on the same boat. 

Henrik is said to have painted several paintings in Skien during these weeks (JH p. 139). His sister Hedvig has said that it was during this stay that Henrik painted caricatures of his siblings as animal figures: Hedvig as a bear, Ole as a fox, Johan as a monkey and Nicolai as a goose. The fox and the monkey have been preserved and can be seen at Venstøp. Read more about the caricatures at Telemark Museum here.

Photo: Telemark museum

1850

Henrik Ibsen stops by the family home at Snipetorpgata 27 in Skien on his way to Kristiania.

1891

Festiviteten in Skien was opened on March 20, 1891 as the town's cultural center. Henrik Ibsen was invited to the opening, but unfortunately could not attend. He writes about the event in a letter to his sister:

I wish I could have been present on that occasion. Of my childhood acquaintances I would have met very few. I would have stood in the circle of a new family, foreign to me. But perhaps not so strange after all. Throughout all the years of absence, it has always seemed to me that I still belonged in my hometown.

Henrik Ibsen

1906

On May 23, 1906, Henrik Ibsen dies in Oslo, without ever having visited his childhood town of Skien again.

Do you want to read the whole story about Henrik Ibsen?

Ibsen had a long and eventful career and life, much of which is well documented. You can find a comprehensive timeline of Ibsen's life and work at UIO.no.

Sources:
Most of the information (and many sentences) are taken from "Tidstavle 1828-1906" in the digitized "Henrik Ibsen's Writings", Centre for Ibsen Studies, University of Oslo (HIS), (Henrik Ibsen's writings: Front page (uio.no)) and in places supplemented and corrected with information from Jørgen Haave: Familien Ibsen, Trondheim 2017.

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