The Interior of the Palm House on the Pfaueninsel Near Potsdam

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Edward Hopper

1834

Carl Blechen
German, 1798-1840

Carl Blechen is regarded as a pivotal figure in nineteenth-century German painting; his short career marks the transition from Romanticism to a more realistic view of nature. Although he is best known for scenes in which a carefully observed Italian landscape served as the backdrop for mysterious or nostalgic figures, The Palm House represents an important detour in his work. In 1832 Blechen was commissioned by Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia (r. 1797–1840) to paint two views of an exotic pleasure building recently constructed near Potsdam. The architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel designed the Palm House for the king’s collection of palms. It was situated on the Pfaueninsel, or Peacock Island, a favorite royal retreat dotted with whimsical buildings such as a tiny castle and a Gothic dairy. Blechen’s painting is both a record of the building, with its lush palms and fragments of an Indian temple, and an evocation of a fantasy world peopled by beautiful women purposefully playing to the viewer’s imagination. After completing two exquisite, small paintings for the king, Blechen made this grand version for public viewing. The Palm House was one of the artist’s most ambitious statements, for he soon succumbed to melancholy and madness.

On View: European Painting and Sculpture, Gallery 221

Artist: Carl Blechen
Title: The Interior of the Palm House on the Pfaueninsel Near Potsdam
Origin: Germany
Date: 1834
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 135 × 126 cm (52 1/2 × 50 in.)
Credit Line: 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
Reference Number: 1996.388

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.

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

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.