Wanderer on the Mountaintop
- Artist
- Carl Gustav Carus, German, 1789–1869
- Date
- 1818
- Material
- Oil on canvas
- made in
- Dresden, Saxony state, Germany, Europe
- Classification
- Paintings
- Current Location
- Not on view
- 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
- Contact Us
- 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.