Lot 20 | Caspar David Friedrich | Die Brandstätte

FRIEDRICH, CASPAR DAVID
1774 Greifswald - 1840 Dresden

Title: Die Brandstätte.
Mann und Frau bei den Resten ihres verbrannten Hauses.
Date: 1802.
Technique: Etching on paper.
Mounting: Mounted.
Measurement: Panel size 9 x 14, sheet size 20 x 28cm.
Notation: Inscribed and dated in reverse in the plate: "... 1802".
Frame: Framed.


Provenance:
- Kasper König Collection, Berlin

Literature:
- Andresen, A.: Die deutschen Maler-Radierer (Peintres-Graveurs) des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts nach ihren Leben und Werken. Leipzig 1870, 4/II

"The Burnt Site": a 'benefit sheet'?
The small, extremely rare etching "Die Brandstätte" from 1802 was created during Caspar David Friedrich's early years in Dresden. It can be assumed that the sheet is to be seen in connection with a historical event: on August 7, 1802, 16 farmsteads were destroyed in a major fire in Neudorf, just outside Dresden. "d 29t Septb 1802" can be read in mirror writing at the top of the image. The connection between the fire and the matching etching in terms of time and motif can be established on the basis of an erroneous handwritten note on the reverse of another print: "den 21t Sept. 1802. Ruine von Neudorf nach dem Brand letzte ... v. Friedrich". The proceeds from the sale of the prints were presumably intended to support the victims of the disaster.

Grief, loss and powerlessness
In front of the ruins of a burnt-down farm, two people give in to their grief and exhaustion. A man leans against a leaning pillar, bent over and leaning on a stick. Next to him, a ladder and a storm hook reach into the sky and, like the buckets standing and lying on the ground, bear witness to the futile efforts to extinguish the fire. Diagonally behind the man, a woman has sunk to her left knee in front of the debris. She has raised her right hand to her face in a gesture of mourning, while her left arm hangs down powerlessly. The left-hand half of the picture is dominated by a large group of trees, which darkly frames the light remnants of the building. In the right-hand half of the sheet, the sky, hatched with cloud structures, has more space. There are bushes and a second group of trees in the distance, behind which a ridge is visible. The loss, grief and powerlessness of people weakened by the forces of nature are the subject of this sheet, which is quite exceptional in Caspar David Friedrich's graphic oeuvre with its narrative component. However, the artist's entire oeuvre will be permeated by this melancholy of the ephemeral.