Christopher Rave (20 February 1881 – 13 January 1933) was a German painting artist, explorer of polar regions and professor.

Life

Rave was a popular painter of naval art living in Hamburg. Between 1900 and 1909 he created about 300 paintings about 8,000 years of navigation. 1911 they were exhibited in Hamburg and sold in particular. The paintings were reproduced as postcards by two publishers, one from Hamburg, the other one from the Netherlands. In 1910 he experienced the accident of German tall ship ''

Preußen Preußen or Preussen is the German word for Prussia. It also refers to: Ships * ''Preußen'' (ship), windjammer built in 1902 * SMS ''Preußen'' (1873), armored frigate * SMS ''Preußen'' (1903), pre-dreadnought Battleship * , vorpostenboot ...

'' as a passenger, running aground close to

Dover Dover () is a town and major ferry port in Kent, South East England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies south-east of Canterbury and east of Maidstone ...

. In 1912 he was member of German exploration voyage to

Spitsbergen Spitsbergen (; formerly known as West Spitsbergen; Norwegian: ''Vest Spitsbergen'' or ''Vestspitsbergen'' , also sometimes spelled Spitzbergen) is the largest and the only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in northern Norw ...

. His task was documentation by photographs and paintings. The voyage under the command of

Herbert Schröder-Stranz Herbert Schröder-Stranz (9 June 1884 – 15 August 1912) was a German officer and Exploration, explorer of polar regions. He led the German Arctic Expedition of 1912. Biography Schröder-Stranz was born at his family estate at Strączno, Stranz ...

and

Alfred Ritscher Alfred Ritscher (23 May 1879 in Bad Lauterberg – 30 March 1963 in Hamburg) was a German polar explorer. A ''Kapitän zur See'' in the ''Kriegsmarine'', he led the third German Antarctic Expedition in 1938–39, which mapped the New Swabia (ger ...

as captain of the ship ''Herzog Ernst'' failed, and just seven out of 15 crew survived. In 1913 Rave published his experiences
Tagebuch von der verunglückten Expedition Schröder-Stranz: mit Federzeichnungen vom Verfasser
' (Diary of the failed expedition of Schröder-Stranz). Having cancer of the throat and hardly able to talk Rave shot himself on January 13, 1933. His tomb, designed by his student Valentin Kraus from Munich, is in Hamburg Ohlsdorf graveyard.

Paintings (selection)

* ''Die brandenburgische Flotte vor Emden'', Format 4.80 m × 3.50 m, property of Kunsthalle Hamburg * '' SMS Seeadler'', oil, before 1924,Carl Kircheiß: ''Wal hooo! Weltreisen mit Harpunen, Angelhaken und Netzen'', Wilkens, Rendsburg 1950, S. 182 possibly several copies * ''Dampfwalfangschiff im nördlichen Eismeer'', oil on canvas, 60 cm × 100 cm, 1910 * ''T.S. "CAP ARCONA" auf See'', oil on wood, 37 × 51 cm * ''Altes Land im rötlichen Winterlicht'', oil on canvas, 60 × 100 cm

Books

*
Tagebuch von der verunglückten Expedition Schröder-Stranz: mit Federzeichnungen vom Verfasser
', Schaffstein, Köln 1913 * Illustrationen und Fotos in: Hermann Rüdiger: ''Die Sorge-Bai: Aus den Schicksalstagen der Schröder-Stranz-Expedition'', 46 Bilder und 5 Tafeln nach Zeichnungen und photographischen Aufnahmen Christopher Rave, Reimer, Berlin 1913, Nachdruck: Edition Fines Mundi, Saarbrücken 2007

Notes

References

* Wolfgang Kayser (Hrsg): ''Vom Steinzeitfloß zum Ozeanriesen (8000 Jahre Seefahrt). Das Leben und Werk des Marinemalers Christopher Rave''. Selbstverlag, Hamburg 1988.

External links

(Hintergrund-Informationen zur TV-Sendung vom 6. April 2008)

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20090901134813/http://www3.ndr.de/sendungen/lieb_und_teuer/videos/liebundteuer608.html German NDR-TV: ''Lieb und teuer'' - presenting the painting of SMS Seeadler Video {{DEFAULTSORT:Rave, Christopher 1881 births 1933 suicides 1933 deaths Explorers of the Arctic German explorers 20th-century German painters 20th-century German male artists German male painters Suicides by firearm in Germany Artists who died by suicide German male writers