About this artwork
Faced with a dearth of architectural commissions in French-occupied Berlin after 1806, the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel produced depictions of imagined architecture. Through these nostalgic concoctions Schinkel championed the Germanic Middle Ages by reviving a Gothic style of architecture over his more customary Neoclassical mode. Taking advantage of national sentiment, he found a market of buyers who longed for images of a simpler time. Schinkel’s own inscription from one of his contemporary lithographs could describe this work: an “attempt to express the lovely nostalgic sadness that fills the heart when the sound of the service emanates from the church.”
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Prints and Drawings
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Artist
- Karl Friedrich Schinkel
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Title
- Gothic Cathedral Behind a Pond with Swans
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Place
- Germany (Artist's nationality:)
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Date
- 1810–1815
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Medium
- Pen and brush and brown wash, with brush and brown wash and watercolor, over graphite, on cream wove paper
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Inscriptions
- Inscribed verso, lower left, in graphite: "Schinkel"
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Dimensions
- 24.4 × 18.5 cm (9 5/8 × 7 5/16 in.)
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Credit Line
- Gift of Dorothy Braude Edinburg to the Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection
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Reference Number
- 2013.1023
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IIIF Manifest
- https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/144370/manifest.json