Wanderer on the Mountaintop
- Date
- 1818
- Material
- Oil on canvas
- made in
- Dresden, Saxony state, Germany, Europe
- Classification
- Paintings
- Collection
- Modern and Contemporary Art
- Current Location
- On View, Gallery 205
- Dimensions
- 17 x 13 1/4 in. (43.2 x 33.7 cm)
framed: 24 x 18 7/8 x 2 in. (61 x 47.9 x 5.1 cm) - Credit Line
- Museum Shop Fund
- Rights
- Public Domain
- Object Number
- 323:1991
NOTES
A traveler has climbed a winding path and rests with his staff on a mountaintop to look out over a sea of clouds. Lone, back-turned figures appear frequently in German Romantic art of the late 18th to 19th centuries. These figures represent a longing for unity with the vastness of nature, a characteristic of this art movement. Carl Gustav Carus described his own mystical experience in the mountains, writing “you lose yourself in boundless space . . . your ego vanishes; you are nothing, God is all.”
Provenance
c.1950 -
Galerie Abels, Cologne, Germany [1]
Private Collection, Munich, Germany [2]
- 1991
Galerie Arnoldi-Livie, Munich, Germany
1991 -
Saint Louis Art Museum, purchased from Galerie Arnoldi-Livie [3]
Notes:
[1] According to the catalogue raisonné, and the invoice from Galerie Arnoldi-Livie, this painting was previously with Galerie Abels [Prause, Marianne. "Carl Gustav Carus. Leben und Werk." Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft 1968, cat. no. 415; invoice dated August 14, 1991, SLAM document files].
[2] The dealer invoice lists the painting as from a private collection in Munich (see note [1]). At the time of the 1968 catalogue raisonné, the location of the painting was unknown to its author (see note [1]).
[3] Invoice from Galerie Arnoldi-Livie (see note [1]). Minutes of the Collections Committee of the Board of Trustees, Saint Louis Art Museum, September 4, 1991.
Galerie Abels, Cologne, Germany [1]
Private Collection, Munich, Germany [2]
- 1991
Galerie Arnoldi-Livie, Munich, Germany
1991 -
Saint Louis Art Museum, purchased from Galerie Arnoldi-Livie [3]
Notes:
[1] According to the catalogue raisonné, and the invoice from Galerie Arnoldi-Livie, this painting was previously with Galerie Abels [Prause, Marianne. "Carl Gustav Carus. Leben und Werk." Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft 1968, cat. no. 415; invoice dated August 14, 1991, SLAM document files].
[2] The dealer invoice lists the painting as from a private collection in Munich (see note [1]). At the time of the 1968 catalogue raisonné, the location of the painting was unknown to its author (see note [1]).
[3] Invoice from Galerie Arnoldi-Livie (see note [1]). Minutes of the Collections Committee of the Board of Trustees, Saint Louis Art Museum, September 4, 1991.
We regularly update records, which may be incomplete. If you have additional information, please contact us at provenance@slam.org.