Lot 83 Dα

This view of the Rhine river valley and Drachenfels castle bathed in warm evening sunlight, seen through the ruins of the Rolandsbogen, is a quintessential representation of Rhine romanticism. It was painted by Andreas Achenbach when he was just 18 years old, at which point he had already been studying at the Düsseldorf academy for several years. The present work is a preparatory study for a piece measuring around twice its size now kept in the private collection “RheinRomantik” (illus. in: Sehnsucht Rhein. Rheinlandschaften in der Malerei, ed. by Karsten Keune, Bonn 2007, front cover and p. 69). Both works display an incised signature. In the piece in the RheinRomantik collection, the artist signed his surname in full, whereas the present work uses only a monogram - something the artist frequently used for studies and sketches. In the larger painting, Achenbach concentrated entirely on the figure of the rambler seen from the back, whereas as in this study he is accompanied by a seated and a kneeling figure.