Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Artistic Interiors of the 19th century

Anonymous artist
A Painter's Studio
1820s
watercolor, gouache
Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum

Caspar David Friedrich
Woman at a Window
(Caroline Friedrich, the artist's wife, in his studio)

1822
oil on canvas
Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin

Martinus Rørbye
View from the Artist's Window
ca. 1825
oil on canvas
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Alfred Joseph Woolmer
Interior of the British Institution
(Old Master Exhibition, summer 1832)

1833
oil on canvas
Yale Center for British Art

The British Institution for Promoting the Fine Arts in the United Kingdom existed from 1805 until 1867. This was a private society organized by art-collecting London aristocrats to mount public exhibitions of paintings loaned by themselves. Public art museums with permanent collections on permanent display were still rare, not at all the universal temples of culture that cover the earth today. In most years the British Institution mounted two major shows, one for the work of native artists (living and dead) and another of Old Masters (almost always foreigners). The admission fee of one shilling stayed the same for half a century, and more than covered the Institution's expenses. Some of the surplus funds were used to purchase paintings "for the Nation" and to encourage English art students in various ways. But the fee served another purpose as well, excluding the majority of ordinary Londoners  for whom a shilling would have counted at that period as a prohibitive price.

Johann Peter Hasenclever
Studio Scene
1836
oil on canvas
Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf

Anonymous artist
Interior of a Library
ca. 1830-50
watercolor
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Adolph Menzel
Balcony Room
1845
oil on canvas
Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin

Adoph Menzel
Studio Wall
1852
oil on paper, mounted on panel
Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin

James Roberts
Queen's Sitting-room at Buckingham Palace
1848
watercolor, gouache
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Christoffer Wilhelm Eckeresberg
At a window in the artist's studio
1852
wash drawing, watercolor
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Otto Scholderer
Violinist at a window
1861
canvas
Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt

Karl Wilhelm Streckfuss
Artist's studio in Berlin
1860s
watercolor
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

William Merritt Chase
Studio Interior
ca. 1882
oil on canvas
Brooklyn Museum

Harriet Backer
Blue Interior
1883
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Norway, Oslo