Caspar David Friedrich - Meeresküste im Mondlicht, 1818

''Seaside by Moonlight'' is an 1818 oil on canvas painting by

Caspar David Friedrich Caspar David Friedrich (5 September 1774 – 7 May 1840) was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landscape ...

. It is now in the Louvre Museum (RF 2000-3), to which it was given by the

Société des Amis du Louvre The Société des amis du Louvre ("Society of Friends of the Louvre") is a voluntary association created in 1897 whose objective is to buy objects with an artistic, archeological, or historical value for the Louvre museum. History The Society w ...

in 2000, and now hangs in Room E on the second floor of the Aile Richelieu. It was the second Friedrich work acquired by the museum after '' The Tree of Crows'' in 1975. The work was produced in late August 1818 after the artist returned to

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

, where he was living, from his honeymoon on the German Baltic coast, where he had grown up. It drew on landscape studies he had made there, particularly in Greifswald and

Rügen Rügen (; la, Rugia, ) is Germany's largest island. It is located off the Pomeranian coast in the Baltic Sea and belongs to the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The "gateway" to Rügen island is the Hanseatic city of Stralsund, where ...

. During that stay he also produced the drawing ''Study of Ships near Vierow'' on 31 July, which fed directly into the painting.

References

{{reflist category:1818 paintings Paintings by Caspar David Friedrich category:Landscape paintings Paintings in the Louvre by Dutch, Flemish and German artists category:Maritime paintings