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May 28, 2017

cca-christensen-liberty-jail

C.C.A. Christensen (1831-1912),

Liberty Jail​, c.1878, tempera on muslin, 78 x 114 1/8 inches. Brigham Young University Museum of Art, gift of the grandchildren of C.C.A. Christensen, 1970.

In May 1851, first non-English Book of Mormon was published in Danish. Elder Erastus Snow and Peter Olsen Hansen arrived on a mission to Copenhagen in 1850. While serving, Hansen began translating the Book of Mormon and Elder Snow traveled to England to arrange for publication. To aid in the translation, an unknown woman from Copenhagen helped Hansen to translate more quickly and more accurately. Eight months after the work on the translation began, 3,000 copies were published. Early convert C.C.A. Christensen was Danish and studied art with Carl Bloch in Denmark before joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and immigrating to the United States. Today's artwork of the day is the Danish native's

Liberty Jail.