The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of April 16, 2024
La Serpentara near Olevano
1829
Location: not on view
Did You Know?
Like many of his German contemporaries in the early 19th century, here Friedrich Preller relied on precise pen lines only without use of brushwork or wash.Description
Friedrich Preller studied in Weimer, Dresden, and Antwerp before winning a stipend from Grand Duke Karl Alexander von Sachsen-Weimar to study in Rome. During his years in Italy (1828-31), he formed important ideas about landscape painting that would develop into a long career in Germany as a landscape painter. Like his teacher in Italy, the painter Joseph Anton Koch, Preller was inspired by the area known as La Serpentara around the picturesque mountain village of Olevano, southeast of Rome. He made numerous trips there and was especially struck by the oak forest depicted in this drawing. He inscribed the drawing with the locale and date (2 June 1829) in its lower left corner. His lively pen work leaves the lightest areas in outline only, so that the white of the paper helps record the fresh and bright atmosphere of the scene, set in relief by darker areas of firm, parallel hatching. Preller later wrote about the area around Olevano: "Nowhere was the organic coherence in nature so clear as there, and my observation was mainly directed toward that."- 1971with C. G. Boerner, Inc., Dusseldorf.1971-The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio.
- C. G. Boerner (firm). Neue Lagerliste Nr. 56. Graphik - Zeichnungen 1971. C.G. Boerner: Dusseldorf, 1971. no. 132, p. 128.Cleveland Museum of Art. "The Year in Review for 1971," The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art. Vol. LIX / No. 1 (January, 1972): pp. 3-47. no. 97, p. 43Cleveland Museum of Art, Diane DeGrazia, and Carter E. Foster. Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in association with Rizzoli International Publications, New York, 2000. Mentioned: cat. no. 65, p. 10, pp.160-161, p. 293; Reproduced: p. 161
- Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002).The German Tradition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 27-June 27, 1993).National Schools of Style. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 14-September 18, 1983).German Drawings of the 18th, 19th, and 20th Centuries. The Cleveland Museum of Art (April 1-July 13, 1980).Year in Review: 1971. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 28, 1971-February 6, 1972).C. G. Boerner Graphik-Zeichnungen: Gustav-Siegle-Haus am Leonhardsplatz, Stuttgart; C. G. Boerner Dusseldorf (1971).
- {{cite web|title=La Serpentara near Olevano|url=false|author=Friedrich Preller|year=1829|access-date=16 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1971.12