"The church of Lyngby (Lyngby Kirke) is situated north -west of Copenhagen [..]. Heinrich Gustav Ferdinand Holm (1803-1861), Danish illustrator and painter, chose the same view as Friedrich for his pictureof the Lyngby Kirke [..]. Friedrich depicted the church of Lyngby once again in the Schweinfurt oil painting 'Brennendes Haus und gotische Kirche' (BS 185). However, owed to the large amount of alterations between drawing and picture, it seems very likely that he did not use the sheet in a sense of a preliminary study, as it was assumed by Börsch-Supan (Börsch-Supan/Jähnig 1973, under no. 185). The sheet was presumably made during Friedrich's [days in Copenhagen] [..]." (Christina Grummt, Caspar David Friedrich. Die Zeichungen. Das gesamte Werk, Munich 2011, p. 76).
The drawing of the small Danish "Kirche von Lyngby" by Caspar David Friedrich remained in the artist's possession throughout his lifetime. Even after his death in 1840 his family kept it in the estate for decades. The "Kirche von Lyngby" only got onto the art market when Friedrich's grandson Harald Friedrich decided to sell a large part of his grandfather's estate in 1916.
The majority of the works were sold to the Kunsthalle Mannheim, whose director Gustav F. Hartlaub began to negotiate the sale with Harald Friedrich in 1915. In January 1916 the museum showed a very successful exhibition with works by Caspar David Friedrich. Many of the works on displayin the exhibition were then sold through the Kunsthalle on the grandson's behalf (cf.: Hans Dickel, Caspar David Friedrich in seiner Zeit. Zeichnungen der Romantik und des Biedermeier, Weinheim 1991, pp. 2f.).
The part of the estate that was not sold through the Kunsthalle Mannheim was directly acquired from Harald Friedrich by the Berlin gallery Fritz Gurlit. Wolfgang Gurlitt, who managed the gallery after the death of his father Fritz in 1893, was specialized in drawings by Caspar David Friedrich and organized many exhibitions (cf. Dickel 1991, p. 3 and annotation 24). Trade publications mention and review Gurlitt's Caspar David Friedrich collection time and again. For instance Karl Scheffler in the magazine "Kunst und Künstler" 1923 (21, 1923, pp. 95ff.) and even far more comprehensive Kurt Karl Eberlein in 1924 (Der Cicerone 16, 1924, pp. 1122-1134). Eberlein wrote: "The graphic artist Friedrich can best be studied in the graphic collections in Dresden, Hamburg and Berlin as well as in some private collections, of which the collection Wolfgang Gurlitt in Berlin is the most important one." (Eberlein, Jahrbuch der jungen Kunst 5, 1924, p. 428). In 1928 Gurlitt participated in a Caspar David Friedrich exhibition at Galerie Kühl in Dresden with several loans. In 1940 Wolfgang Gurlitt organized a large commemorative exhibition on occasion of the 100th anniversary of the artist's death. At that point the "Kirche von Lyngby" was no longer in his possession. The gallery owner Wolfgang Gurlitt was in dire straits from time to time and used to sell artworks, among them several works by Caspar David Friedrich, to his cousin Cousin Hildebrand Gurlitt, who was active as an art trader in Hamburg. Accordingly, this drawing by Friedrich is mentioned in a list of Hildebrand Gurlitt's acquisitions from 1936. Initially, he paid his cousin only half the purchase price, the other half was scheduled to be paid on the day after the sheet's successful resale (cf. Hildebrand Gurlitt, Einkaufsbuch Verkaufsbuch 1937-41, p. 2, acquisitions, 11 April 1937). Along with the drawing "Kirche von Lyngby", Hildebrand Gurlitt also obtained a photograph of the sheet, the rear of the photograph is inscribed by Wolfgang Gurlitt with the confirmation of authenticity, as well as with the confirmation of the acquisition of the drawing from Harald Friedrich in Hanover in 1916 (cf. estate Cornelius Gurlitt, Federal Archive Berlin.) In April 1937 Hildebrand Gurlitt found a buyer for the drawing of the small Danish church in Hanna Reemtsma, the wife of the Hamburg cigarette manufacturer Hermann Reemtsma. She obtained the sheet and three other objects in exchange for a painting (cf. Hildebrand Gurlitt, Ein- und Verkaufsbuch 1937-[..], p. 4, no. 875, 10 April 1937). The drawing remained in the collection Hanna Reemtsma until 1986, then she gave the sheet to a friend, whose family now offers the work for sale.