# Remembrances of a Scene near Auerbach

- By: Robert S. Duncanson (born Fayette, NY 1821-died Detroit, MI 1872)
- Date: 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
- Credit line: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Drs. Richard and Barbara Wong
- Museum: [Smithsonian Institution](https://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=7609)
- Rights: [CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/web/cdf32f43ea25b465362ffdf5f86b87e0.jpg
- Who can see it: Little Ones profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

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.