The Karlsruhe Sketchbook is a 184 x 118 mm booklet in which Caspar David Friedrich recorded motifs from the Dresden area between April and June 1804. He later used some of them in a number of his now most famous paintings. They include, for example, a stately oak tree, which can be seen in Hünengrab im Schnee (Dolmen in the Snow) (1807) and Abtei im Eichwald (Abbey in the Oak Wood) (1809/10), or rows of linden trees in the Ostragehege, which we find again in Das Große Gehege (The Great Enclosure) (1832) and some of which have survived to this day. It also contains a distant view of the Hoher Schneeberg, which Friedrich depicts in Elblandschaft (Elbe Landscape) (1802) and Frau vor der untergehenden Sonne (Woman in Front oft the Setting Sun) (1818), as well as a view across the Elbe to the Boselspitze near Meißen, which appears in the background as a snow-covered mountain range in Nordische Landschaft/Frühling (Northern Landscape/Spring) (1825), among others.
The Karlsruhe sketchbook is therefore a very special collection of graphic artworks that not only has a special relationship to Dresden and its surroundings, but is also central to Caspar David Friedrich's graphic and painterly work. It comes from the estate of Friedrich's friend Georg Friedrich Kersting and was acquired in 2024 through the merger of the Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung, the Kupferstichkabinett of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, the Klassik Stiftung Weimar and the Kupferstich-Kabinett of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden.
In addition, the purchase was made possible with funds from the Kulturstiftung der Länder and for Dresden with the support of the Liebelt Foundation, Hamburg, Dr. Henning Hoesch, the Verein der Freunde des Kupferstich-Kabinett Dresden e.V., Dr. Martin Schröder, Michael and Elke von Brentano and other donors.
Click on the following view of the sketchbook and wait a short moment to be able to browse through the sketchbook.
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