Lot 1541 Dα

This Nordic coastal landscape is a remarkable early work by the young Andreas Achenbach, painted in 1837 when he was just 22 years old. The artist was residing in Munich at the time, as mentioned in the signature. He had left the Düsseldorf academy, which according to Achenbach he had entered at age 12, under protest the year before, and moved to the Bavarian capital with P. Hasenclever and J. W. Preyer. However, Achenbach returned to Düsseldorf in 1838 to open his own studio.
Before moving to Munich, Achenbach had visited Holland and Russia in 1832 and Sweden in 1835, and he continued to travel throughout his life in search of motifs. The present work shows a Scandinavian coastal landscape with a stranded ship. Achenbach often painted shipwrecks during the 1830s, before these were replaced by his equally dramatic harbour scenes. The shipwreck motif with figures rushing forth to help appears somewhat dwarfed within the impressive Nordic landscape, bathed in dramatic light flooding from a break in the storm clouds. However, this monumental grandeur is in turn softened by the intimate quality of the fishing huts depicted in the right edge.