Forest Landscape with Lake and Swans, ca. 1830 – 1834

About the Acquisition

In 1890 the widow of the art writer Karl Schnaase, who had died in Wiesbaden in 1875, bequeathed a number of paintings and nineteenth-century prints to the Städel. Schnaase, who had studied law and had lived in Düsseldorf since 1829, shared with many artists of his time the desire to renew Christian art. In his words, religion was the "true soul of the spirit of the people". With this in mind, the influential autodidact founded the 'Christliches Kunstblatt' - an art magazine for evangelical Christians - in 1858.