Artwork

Facsimiles of Sketches Made in Flanders and Germany: On the Walls, Cologne

Facsimiles of Sketches Made in Flanders and Germany: On the Walls, Cologne is a print by the Romanticist artist Samuel Prout. It dates from 1833 and is held in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Accession no.: 2012.277
Credit line: Bequest of John Bonebrake

About this work

Overview

This print, 'Facsimiles of Sketches Made in Flanders and Germany: On the Walls, Cologne', is a lithograph by a prominent landscape watercolorist and printmaker. It depicts a weathered wall in Cologne, adorned with casual chalk drawings.

Subject & Meaning

The artwork captures a crumbling wall bearing various graffiti, including sketches of animals and buildings. The subject is not a direct observation from life, but rather a reproduction of ephemeral marks found on the wall during travels.

Technique & Style

The print's tone is achieved through a combination of printing on pale gray paper and adding highlights by hand with white gouache, creating a sense of light and shadow. This technique, related to chiaroscuro, gives the image a sense of depth and visual interest.

History & Provenance

The print is part of a tradition of topographical prints that gained popularity in England, inspired by the beauty of landscapes and facilitated by post-Napoleonic travel. Such prints were often published in sets, allowing patrons to experience distant places vicariously.

Facisimilies of Sketches made in Flanders and Germany: Dome, Francfort, Samuel Prout

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Artist & collection

Artist

Samuel Prout

Samuel Prout was a British watercolourist, and one of the masters of watercolour architectural painting, who largely invented the genre of the grand steet scene in British watercolour painting, mostly with picturesque scenes from…