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The Lorelei
Albert Pinkham Ryder (born New Bedford, MA 1847-died New York City 1917)
ca. 1896 - 1917
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- 22 1/2 x 19 1/4 in. (57.2 x 48.9 cm)
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Tulip Tree Foundation, Robin B. Martin, Trustee
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Kids profiles and older: it shows nature, places, still life or a children's book. How works are placed
View at the Smithsonian Institution
About this work
The Lorelei, one of Albert Pinkham Ryder's larger paintings, links love and death, a common theme among late nineteenth-century artists, poets, and musicians. The tale of the Lorelei became popular in the mid-nineteenth century when German poet Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) penned a poem about her, which a number of composers set to music. Ryder's image is based on the second and third stanzas of the poem (above), and his friends reported that he sang "the song of the Lorelei" while working on this painting.
