2023-11-30 13:37:00
The Karlsruhe Sketchbook, dating from 1804, is one of six surviving sketchbooks by the Dresden master of romantic landscape painting, Caspar David Friedrich. Four others are in the National Museum in Oslo, one in the Engraving Room of the Dresden Art Museum. The album up for auction measures 12 x 18 cm and has a total of 40 pages, almost all of which are filled with pencil sketches. The brown marbled cover has some wear but is in surprisingly good condition overall. The inside of the paper is smooth and only slightly yellowed, all pages are almost intact. This little book takes the viewer 220 years ago, to the forested surroundings of Dresden, where an aspiring artist wanders in search of inspiration. The sketchbook depicts motifs and fragments that Caspar David Friedrich later used in his famous romantic landscapes: meadows and fields, birds – sitting and in flight, sailboats and blocks of rocks, but especially a lot of trees.
In all sorts of variants, in groups and separately standing, only silhouettes or with minutely drawn branches and deep cracks in the bark. The most recognizable are the sketches of old oak trees, images of which surround the ruins in the painting “Abbey in the Oak Forest”. As follows from the dates stamped on some pages, the drawings were made between April 25 and June 1, 1804. Some corners bear the 29-year-old artist’s gray-pencil fingerprints.
Will the sketches remain in Germany?
“Album of sketches of Karlsruhe” by the German artist Caspar David Friedrich will be auctioned on Thursday, November 30, at Berlin auction house Grisebach as one of the main slots. It will become the most expensive copy of this year if it is sold at the stated price of about one and a half million euros.
Painting by Caspar David Friedrich “Abbey in the Oak Forest”Photo: akg-images/picture alliance
In 2024, the 250th anniversary of the birth of this well-known artist in Germany will be widely celebrated. Grandiose exhibitions are planned in Dresden, Berlin, Hamburg, as well as in New York. It can be assumed that museums are very interested in expanding their collections, but it is not yet clear whether they will decide to pay such an impressive amount for this small collection. Art historians really hope that after the auction, the Karlsruhe Sketchbook will not disappear somewhere in the safe of a private collector. At the same time, the chances are high that the album will not be exported abroad and will remain in Germany. Shortly before the scheduled auction, the Office of the Senate for Culture of Berlin decided to initiate the procedure for adding this artifact to the List of Cultural Property of National Importance in Berlin. This may affect consumer interest and, accordingly, the price of the album. But the fact remains that until May 2024, at least for the duration of the procedure, there will be a ban on the export of this work by Caspar David Friedrich.
The most romantic of romantics
Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) was born in Greifswald in northern Germany into the family of a soap maker. He studied fine art at the Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. After graduation, the artist settled in Dresden. Landscapes of his native land – chalk cliffs, ruins of monasteries, port views – are favorite motifs of his work. At the same time, he did not lose contact with his relatives in Greifswald: he regularly visited them and maintained a lively correspondence. In the Pomeranian Land museum in Greifswald you can see a unique collection of 54 letters.
One of the world’s largest collections of Friedrich’s paintings is kept in Old National Gallery on the museum island in Berlin. It was here that the legendary “Centennial Exhibition of German Art” took place in 1906, where 93 works by Germany’s main romantic were presented.
The series of anniversary events opens in Germany on December 15th in the exhibition hall Kunsthalle Hamburg. The exhibition tells about the work of Friedrich and about the landscape genre in the art of modern times, in particular in the first third of the 19th century. The exhibition focuses on the interaction between man and nature in the paintings of the master of German romanticism. A separate part of the exhibition, which will last until April 1, 2024, is about the influence of the artist’s work on contemporary art.
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#sketches #Germanys #main #romantic