Carl Blechen
German, 1798-1840

The Interior of the Palm House on the Pfaueninsel Near Potsdam, 1834

Oil on canvas
52 1/2 x 50 in. (135 x 126 cm)
Through prior acquisitions of the George F. Harding Collection; L.L. and A.S. Coburn and Alexander A. McKay endowments; through prior gift of William Wood Prince; through prior acquisitions of the Charles H. and Mary F.S. Worcester Endowment, 1996.388

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

Berlin, Akademie der Künste, XXVIII. Kunstaustellung der Königlichen Akademie der Künste, 1834, cat. 72.

Publication History

Anonymous review of exhibition at the Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Museum, Blätter für bildende Kunst, ed. F. Kugler (October 6, 1834), p. 323.

O.F. Gruppe, review of exhibition at the Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Allgemeinen Preussischen Staatszeitung (November 29, 1834), no. 311, p. 1347.

Atanazy von Raczynski, Geschichte der neueren deutschen Kunst, vol. 3 (Berlin, 1841), p. 97.

Gert Bartoschek in Johann Gottfried Schadow, Kunstwerke und Kunstansichten: Ein Quellenwerk zur Berliner Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte zwischen 1780 und 1845, ed. Götz Eckardt, vol. 3 (Berlin, 1987), p. 742.

Utta Simmons, “Die Innenansichten des Palmenhauses auf der Pfaueninsel von Carl Blechen 1832–1834,” master thesis (Technische Universität Berlin, 1989).

Helmut Börsch–Supan in Carl Blechen, Zwischen Romantik und Realismus, exhib. cat., ed. Peter–Klaus Schuster (Berlin: Nationalgalerie, 1990), p. 124, under no. 67.

Virginia Voedisch in The Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Studies 28, 1(2002), pp. 84 (ill.), 85.

Ownership History

Bought by Friedrich Wilhelm III, King of Prussia from the artist in 1834 for 1000 Taler [acc. to records of Friedrich Wilhelm III’s acquisitions in Archiv der Verwaltung der Staatlichen Schlösser und Garten in Potsdam-Sanssouci: “28.11.1834 Blechen ‘Palmenhaus’ 200 Frd. Cour Die Kaiserinn” and “181. Journal Nr. 638. Blechen Palmenhaus 200 Frd. Cour,” see Uwe Simmons, research paper, ms, 1994, copy in curatorial file]; possibly given to his daughter Charlotte, the Tsarina Alexandra Fedorovna, wife of Tsar Nicholas I in November 1834; possibly part of the Russian imperial collection until after 1917. Swiss collection by c. 1920. Daxer and Marshall, Munich and James Mackinnon, London, by 1996; sold to the Art Institute, 1996.