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Remembrances of a Scene near Auerbach
Robert S. Duncanson (born Fayette, NY 1821-died Detroit, MI 1872)
ca. 1856
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- 13 1/2 x 18 3/8 in. (34.3 x 46.7 cm)
- Culture
- Germans
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Drs. Richard and Barbara Wong
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Smithsonian Institution
About this work
Robert Duncanson’s trip to Europe in 1853 probably inspired Remembrances of a Scene near Auerbach. In the distance, a lake disappears into tree-covered mountains, and nestled into the hills sits Auerbach Castle, a German fortress that still exists today. Shafts of sunlight stream through the clouds, illuminating the castle and making it the focal point in the landscape. Like many nineteenth-century American artists, Duncanson was fascinated with Europe’s classical and medieval ruins as aesthetically pleasing markers of the passage of time and its effect on the landscape.
