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Provenance: Studio of the artist; thence by descent to the present owner
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Exhibited: Dresden, Dresdener Akademie-Ausstellung, 1820 (as Fenster einer verfallenen Abtey; Phantasie)
Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister and Residenzschloss Dresden; Berlin, Alte Nationalgalerie: Carl Gustav Carus, Natur und Idee, 2009-10, no. 29, illustrated in the catalogue
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Literature: Schorns Kunstblatt, 1820, p. 380
Gerda Grashoff, Carus als Maler, Lippstadt, 1926, p. 31
Marianne Prause, Carl Gustav Carus als Maler, Cologne, 1963, p. 30
Marianne Prause, Carl Gustav Carus. Leben und Werk, Berlin, 1968, p. 101, no. 63, illustrated
Stefan Grosche & Jutta Müller-Tamm, Naturwissenschaft und Kunst im Briefwechsel zwischen C. G. Carus und Goethe, Göttingen, 2001, p. 270
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Notes: Painted in 1819-20, Ruine Eldena was painted shortly after Carus met Caspar David Friedrich. The two men became lifelong friends, and Friedrich's influence on the direction Carus's painting took from that time on is unmistakeable. In 1819, on Friedrich's recommendation, Carus set off on a sketching trip to the Isle of Rügen on Germany's Baltic coast. On the way, on 13 August, he stopped off in Friedrich's hometown, Greifswald. That evening, he wandered out to the ruins of the monastery of Eldena, the sight of which 'presented one of the most enchanting views I had ever come across' (Carl Gustav Carus, Lebenserinnerungen und Denkwürdigkeiten, Leipzig, 1865-66, vol. 1, p. 262).
Inspired by a sepia drawing Friedrich had made of the view (Kupferstich-Kabinett, Dresden, inv. no. C1936-35) and worked up from a pencil drawing Carus made on site (Dresden, Kupferstich-Kabinett, inv. no. C1963-450), the present work is the first and larger of two oils of the subject he painted. In 1823 he painted a smaller version as a present to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and which, to this day, is in the collection of the Goethe-Haus, Weimar. The present work is more focused and overtly romantic than the Weimar painting which, like the drawing, is horizontal and takes in a broader view, perhaps in consideration of Goethe's penchant for the classical landscapes of Ruysdael and Claude Lorrain.
