A Swan Among the Reeds, by Moonlight
September 18, 1852
- Medium
- Charcoal with white gouache heightening, on brown paper laid down on thin board
- Dimensions
- 22.8 × 19.1 cm
- Status
- In Museum Collection
- Collect24 Art ID
- C24-204009
Carl Gustav Carus was a close friend and follower of fellow German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich and absorbed his stirring elegiac nature imagery. Just as in Friedrich's paintings, the moon in this drawing symbolizes impending death. The swan, about to take flight, evokes the soul's taking leave of the body. Carus drew this as a birthday present for his daughter Clara as she lay ill with the typhus that would take her life three months later.
Provenance
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Registry history
- September 18, 1852 — Recorded in the collection of J. Paul Getty Museum — drawings
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