Lot Essay
During the early 1820s, Friedrich explored the allegorical potential of figures in domestic interiors and Caroline Friedrich auf der Treppe is a provocative and subtle example of this thematic type. Painted on an intimate and immediate scale, Friedrich's interior pictures contrast in pictorial structure, to the limitless horizons of his landscapes, which dominated Friedrich's Romantic oeuvre. Nevertheless, both genres are successfully employed by Friedrich as pictorial idioms to convey his deeply held spiritual beliefs.
Painted in 1825, shortly after Friedrich's appointment as Professor at the Dresden Academy, the present picture is a pendant to Frau mit dem Leuchter (see H. Börsch-Supan and K. W. Jähnig, p. 398, no. 333). According to Voigtländer (op. cit., p. 371), Friedrich's wife Caroline, whom he married in 1818, is depicted in both pictures in the interior of their Dresden residence, Terrassenstrasse 13. The pictorial structure of both works is motivated by allegorical conceptions. In the pendant, Friedrich depicts Caroline with pious simplicity in a spare interior, defined only by light and shadow. She stands holding a candle, about to descend the darkened stairwell. Friedrich captures, allegorically, the sense of human isolation at the brink of death and the transition to the after-life. In the present work Caroline, immersed in solitude, ascends the shadowy narrow staircase and is silhouetted against the sun-lit wall, turning in a literal and figurative way, towards the divine source of the sunlight. Although this can be read on one level as a symbol of Romantic yearning, Börsch-Supan has suggested that this work is an allegory for man's ultimate resurrection (op. cit., p. 9). The viewer is kept at a physical distance from the figure by way of the rectilinear geometry of the doorway and stairs, but shares in the human contemplation of the mystical and Christian nature of the after-life.
The strength of this picture derives from the subtle use of a limited range of warm tones to define the space. This encourages the viewer to share, without distraction, in Caroline Friedrich's human experience as she moves from the dark staircase towards the light beyond. Friedrich suffered a stroke in 1825; from this point on, themes of death and renewal were particularly dominant.
A preparatory drawing of Caroline Friedrich exists in a private collection, Karlsruhe.
As Börsch-Supan states in his catalogue raisonné (op. cit., p. 400) this picture was damaged in a fire in the Friedrichhaus in 1901 when it belonged to W. Langguth, Greifwald. A recent condition report is available upon request.
Painted in 1825, shortly after Friedrich's appointment as Professor at the Dresden Academy, the present picture is a pendant to Frau mit dem Leuchter (see H. Börsch-Supan and K. W. Jähnig, p. 398, no. 333). According to Voigtländer (op. cit., p. 371), Friedrich's wife Caroline, whom he married in 1818, is depicted in both pictures in the interior of their Dresden residence, Terrassenstrasse 13. The pictorial structure of both works is motivated by allegorical conceptions. In the pendant, Friedrich depicts Caroline with pious simplicity in a spare interior, defined only by light and shadow. She stands holding a candle, about to descend the darkened stairwell. Friedrich captures, allegorically, the sense of human isolation at the brink of death and the transition to the after-life. In the present work Caroline, immersed in solitude, ascends the shadowy narrow staircase and is silhouetted against the sun-lit wall, turning in a literal and figurative way, towards the divine source of the sunlight. Although this can be read on one level as a symbol of Romantic yearning, Börsch-Supan has suggested that this work is an allegory for man's ultimate resurrection (op. cit., p. 9). The viewer is kept at a physical distance from the figure by way of the rectilinear geometry of the doorway and stairs, but shares in the human contemplation of the mystical and Christian nature of the after-life.
The strength of this picture derives from the subtle use of a limited range of warm tones to define the space. This encourages the viewer to share, without distraction, in Caroline Friedrich's human experience as she moves from the dark staircase towards the light beyond. Friedrich suffered a stroke in 1825; from this point on, themes of death and renewal were particularly dominant.
A preparatory drawing of Caroline Friedrich exists in a private collection, Karlsruhe.
As Börsch-Supan states in his catalogue raisonné (op. cit., p. 400) this picture was damaged in a fire in the Friedrichhaus in 1901 when it belonged to W. Langguth, Greifwald. A recent condition report is available upon request.