Hammerheart: how a Victorian painting became a Viking metal cover
A burning longship pushed out into a dark sea, warriors raising their arms on the shore. It looks made for Bathory. It was painted in London in 1893.
A longship in flames, pushed out into a rough, dark sea. Smoke and fire fill half the sky. On the shore a crowd of warriors raise their arms and weapons in a last salute, and in front of them stands a figure in a crested helmet. Above it all, in red gothic letters, the name Bathory.
It looks like it was painted for the album. It was painted almost a hundred years before it.
A Victorian in Valhalla
The picture is The Funeral of a Viking by Sir Frank Dicksee, an English painter born in London in 1853. Dicksee loved dramatic scenes from legends, history and literature, and he was also in demand for portraits of fashionable society women. He painted this one in 1893, in oil, on a canvas more than three metres wide.
He did well out of the art world. Dicksee was elected to the Royal Academy in 1891 and served as its president from 1924 until his death in 1928. That same year a man named Arthur Burton gave the painting to the city of Manchester in memory of his mother. It still belongs to Manchester Art Gallery, which provided it for the album sleeve.
Bathory turns north
Hammerheart is Bathory's fifth studio album, released on 23 April 1990 on Noise. It was recorded between June and August 1989 at Heavenshore Studio in Stockholm. Bathory was really Quorthon: he wrote every song, sang and played guitars and keyboards, while the bass and drums were played by session musicians hiding behind the names Kothaar and Vvornth.
The album finished a change that started on Blood Fire Death. The raw black metal of the early records gave way to slower, longer, more epic songs about the old north, such as One Rode to Asa Bay, about the arrival of Christianity in Scandinavia. Today Hammerheart is seen as one of the cornerstones of Viking metal.
So the genre got its founding image from a gallery in Manchester. Dicksee would probably have been confused. Then again, he did paint the fire first.
About the poster
This is the Hammerheart sleeve printed as a large 75 × 55 cm (30 × 22 in) landscape poster, from 2020. It is an original magazine insert, never hung, with no staple holes, folded three times as issued. The sheet is double-sided, with Pantera "Cowboys from Hell" on the back.
Browse all original Bathory posters.
Quick answers
What painting is on the Bathory Hammerheart cover?
The Funeral of a Viking, painted in 1893 by the English artist Sir Frank Dicksee.
Where is the original painting?
In the collection of Manchester Art Gallery, which received it as a gift from Arthur Burton in 1928.
When was Hammerheart released?
On 23 April 1990, on Noise. It was recorded in 1989 at Heavenshore Studio in Stockholm.
How big is the poster?
75 × 55 cm (about 30 × 22 inches), landscape. It is a separate insert, so it has no staple holes, and it is folded three times as issued.
What is on the other side?
Pantera "Cowboys from Hell". The sheet is double-sided, so you choose which side goes on the wall.