In the final years of his life, Friedrich’s art remained closely tied to the coast. He dedicated himself to this subject several times in the form of sepia drawings in order to convey the atmospheric experience of spatial depth extending to the horizon. One of the sheets produced at that time shows a section of beach at night combined with a view toward the open sea, with rocks of different sizes scattered on the shore (Stony Beach with Anchor and Crescent Moon, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Kupferstich-Kabinett). (1) One of the regular props of Friedrich’s seascapes, an anchor, can be seen stuck in the gravel near the foreground, the motif attuning us to the mood because of its significance as a Christian symbol of hope. The surface of the sea is calm and illuminated by the crescent moon above the water on the right. Friedrich’s depiction of the section of shore can be traced back to a drawing made near Ruschvitz on Rugen in the summer of 1818. (2)

On another sheet, Friedrich dispensed with the introductory shoreline altogether and had his composition begin directly with the water and several rocks lying in it (Moonrise by the Sea, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Kupferstichkabinett). (3) In the center, the full moon is seen rising above the horizon of the sea, and its light, which marks a path on the surface of the sea, radiating into the foreground. Friedrich borrowed the constellation of rocks from a drawing with a view of the Stubbenkammer that he had already made in Rugen in 1801. (4)

Around 1838–39, the artist sold three large-format sepia drawings to Prince Christian Frederik of Denmark, the future King Christian VIII. These sheets have motifs typical of Friedrich and already found elsewhere in his oeuvre. One of these drawings is dedicated to Lake Tollense, near Neubrandenburg, which in the middle ground has a bright, narrow band crossing the entire width of the sheet (Private Collection). (5) Appearing prominently in this landscape built up from subtle gradations of tone are a creel hanging on poles and a rack for drying hay. The subject of another drawing is a megalithic tomb that was once located near Gützkow (Private Collection). (6) Such large stone tombs not only fascinated Friedrich but also numbered among the leitmotifs of Danish landscape painting in the period. The third drawing, with the motif of a cave in the Harz that Friedrich had already explored in a drawing in 1811 (Study of the Rocky Gorge with Two Small Figures at the Cave Entrance, Albertina, Vienna), is one of the undisputed high points of his late drawings (Private Collection). (7) Friedrich transposed the contrast between the interior of the cave and the exterior into a structure of light and dark whose nuanced shades of brown lend the subject an almost haptic quality.

MARKUS BERTSCH, in: exh. cat. Hamburg 2023, p. 328.

(1) Grummt 2011, vol. 2, pp. 862 f., no. 952. See also Börsch-Supan/Jähnig 1973, p. 471, no. 482; exh. cat. Oslo/Dresden 2014, pp. 180 f., no. 72.
(2) Grummt 2011, vol. 2, pp. 750 f., no. 821.
(3) Ibid., pp. 863 f., no. 954. See also Börsch-Supan/Jähnig 1973, p. 472, no. 485.
(4) Grummt 2011, vol. 1, pp. 302–04, no. 303.
(5) Ibid., vol. 2, p. 893, no. 987. See Börsch-Supan/Jähnig 1973, pp. 466 f., no. 470.
(6) Grummt 2011, vol. 2, p. 894, no. 988. See Börsch-Supan/Jähnig 1973, p. 469, no. 476.
(7) Grummt 2011, vol. 2, pp. 894–97, no. 989. See Börsch-Supan/Jähnig 1973, p. 467, no. 471.