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Lot Essay
Around 1798, Friedrich started focusing on tree studies - an interest which he intensified in 1799. The isolated tree, cast alone on the white sheet, comes to epitomise Romantic sehnsucht and the Goethian ideal of sumptheia between Artist and Nature.
A similar study of a spruce tree by Friedrich is in the Kunstmuseum, Basel (Inv. No. 1932/200). Drawn in 1798, either in Greifswald or Dresden shortly after Friedrich's return from Copenhagen, the Basel study shows the same precise ductus that caracterises the present drawing. Another, smaller drawing of a spruce tree, drawn circa 1799 is in the National Gallery, Oslo (Inv. no. B 1603).
On the reverse of this sheet, Friedrich sketched a study for a group of six trees relating to an etching, representing a copse with a small bridge, which the artist executed circa 1800 (B.S. and J. 107).
We are grateful to Professor Helmut Brsch-Supan for his assistance in cataloguing the present lot.
A similar study of a spruce tree by Friedrich is in the Kunstmuseum, Basel (Inv. No. 1932/200). Drawn in 1798, either in Greifswald or Dresden shortly after Friedrich's return from Copenhagen, the Basel study shows the same precise ductus that caracterises the present drawing. Another, smaller drawing of a spruce tree, drawn circa 1799 is in the National Gallery, Oslo (Inv. no. B 1603).
On the reverse of this sheet, Friedrich sketched a study for a group of six trees relating to an etching, representing a copse with a small bridge, which the artist executed circa 1800 (B.S. and J. 107).
We are grateful to Professor Helmut Brsch-Supan for his assistance in cataloguing the present lot.