Peter Nicolai Arbo

Peter Nicolai Arbo(18 June 1831 – 14 October 1892) was a Norwegian historical painter, who specialized in portraits and large narrative scenes from Norwegian history and Norse mythology. His best known work is The Wild Hunt of Odin (Oslo), a dramatic subject based on the Wild Hunt legend and Valkyrie, the two versions of which (in Stockholm and Oslo) depict a female figure from Norse mythology.

Peter Nicolai Arbo grew up at Gulskogen Manor in Gulskogen, a borough in Drammen, Norway. He was the son of headmaster Christian Fredrik Arbo (1791–1868) and his wife Marie Christiane von Rosen. His brother Carl Oscar Eugen Arbo was a military medical doctor and a pioneer in Norwegian anthropologic studies. Arbo's childhood home, Gulskogen, was built in 1804 as a summer residence for his older cousin, lumber dealer and industrialist Peter Nicolai Arbo.

Arbo started his art education with a year at the Art School operated by Frederik Ferdinand Helsted (1809–1875) in Copenhagen (1851–1852). After this, he studied at the art academy in Düsseldorf.