In a Railway Carriage (After a Night's Journey)

1851

Adolph Menzel
German, 1815–1905

This is a remarkable example of an early work from a pioneering proponent of Realism. Menzel revealed the unglamorous aspect of bourgeois train travel in many compelling details: a man asleep in a contorted position, a wistful woman gazing out at early morning light, the detritus of their journey around them. Menzel began to use opaque watercolor (gouache) in 1850, combining it with pastel (and oil) as seen here.

Status: On View, Gallery 223
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Adolph Friedrich Erdmann von Menzel
Title: In a Railway Carriage (After a Night's Journey)
Place: Germany (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1851
Medium: Gouache, with touches of pastel and oil paint, on cream wove paper, laid down on Japanese paper
Inscriptions: Signed and dated lower right, in brush and brown gouache: "Menzel / 51"
Dimensions: 27.3 × 33 cm (10 3/4 × 13 in.)
Credit Line: Regenstein Acquisition Fund
Reference Number: 2012.554
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/215327/manifest.json

Max Jordan and Robert Dohme, Das Werk Adolph Menzels: vom künstler autorisierte Ausgabe, 2 vols (Munich, 1890), vol. 2:pl. 25.
Friederich von Boetticher, Malerwerke des neunzehnten jahrhunderts (Dresden, 1898), p. 19, no. 9.
Hugo von Tschudi, Ausstellung von Werken Adolf von Menzels (Berlin, 1905), no. 302.
Hermann Beenken, Das neunsehnte Jahrundert in der deutschen Kunst: Aufgaben und Gehalte Versuch einer Rechenschaft (Munich, 1944), p. 330.
Adolph Menzel, exh. cat. (Berlin, 1980), p. 117.
Claude Keisch and Marie Ursula Riemann-Reyher (editors) Adolph Menzel, 1815–1905, Between Romanticism and Impressionism, exh. cat. (New Haven, 1997), pp. 53, and 228 (not cited by name, but within discussion of no. 87).

Dresden, Aquarelle Exhibition, 1877.
Berlin, Fritz Gurlitts Salon, 1881.
Berlin, Lepke Berlin, 1882.
Vienna, Internationale Jubiläumsausstellung im Künstlerhaus, 1888.
Berlin, Thannhauser Gallery, Adolph von Menzel 1815–1905, April 1928, pp. 22-23, cat. 75 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, “Master Drawings Unveiled: 25 Years of Major Acquisitions,” August 27, 2016–January 29, 2017, no cat.

Wilhelm Itzinger, Berlin, by 1898 [Boetticher]. Galerie Heinemann, Munich, from Dec. 15, 1903; sold to Hofrat Hanfstaengl, Munich, Jan. 7, 1904 [Heinemann stockbook]. Dr. Martin Söhle, Hamburg, by 1905 [Tschudi]; sold, E. A. Fleischmann’s, Munich, Oct. 30, 1907, lot 100. Alfred Sommerguth (1859-1950), Berlin; his forced sale: Hans W. Lange, Berlin, Feb. 7, 1939, lot 21. Private Collection, Germany; sold in cooperation with the heirs of Alfred Sommerguth, Sotheby’s, New York, May 5, 2011, lot 37, to Colnaghi, London; sold by Katrin Bellinger, Munich, to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2012.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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In a Railway Carriage (After a Night's Journey)

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.