The Fire Scene, ca. 1802
Etching
State/print versionI/II
Panel dimensions9,1 × 13,6 cm
Sheet dimensions10,5 × 15,1 cm
About the workA man and a woman stand, lost, before the ruins of a destroyed house. While he seeks support against a narrow remnant of a wall, she has sunk to her knees. The white sky seems to reflect the emptiness the couple feels in the face of their lost home. The German artist Caspar David Friedrich created this etching in 1802 in response to a fire in a village just outside Dresden, in which a total of 16 houses were destroyed. This sheet depicts the extremely rare first state of the etching, in which the sky has not yet been hatched.
AccessionAcquisition 1921
Provenance[...]; 1921 erworben von Kurt E. Simon
Inventory numberK 1921-92
