Stolen Art DealerTwo men seen from behind, one leaning on the other, stand beside a gnarled oak and look at the moon in a night landscape.
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Catalogue No. 1008 · Christie's · London
Two Men Contemplating the Moon
About $2.6 million in today’s money: 29 years of the typical US household’s income. Source
- Artist
- Caspar David Friedrich (German, 1774-1840)
- Title
- Two Men Contemplating the Moon (Zwei Männer in Betrachtung des Mondes)
- Date
- c. 1830
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Size
- 34.9 x 43.8 cm (13 3/4 x 17 1/4 in.)
Caspar David Friedrich's Two Men Contemplating the Moon (Zwei Männer in Betrachtung des Mondes) shows two men seen from behind, one leaning on the other, beside a gnarled oak in a night landscape. They look toward the moon. It is oil on canvas, about 35 by 44 centimetres, and Christie's dates it to around 1830.
This is Friedrich's own repetition of a composition first painted in 1819. Both Christie's and the Metropolitan Museum of Art describe it as the third version: the first is now in Dresden, and a second version, from about 1824, is in Berlin.
Friedrich gave the picture to his physician, Dr. Fritz von Rosenberg, in Dresden, and it stayed with the family's descendants. Werner Sumowski first published it in 1970, when it was still with them in Wuppertal-Barmen. Christie's sold it in London on 7 October 1999 for £771,500, about $1.27 million at the time, against an estimate of £800,000 to £1,200,000. The Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired it in 2000 through the Wrightsman Fund.
The sale
- Auction house
- Christie's, London
- Date
- 7 October 1999
- Estimate
- GBP 800,000-1,200,000
- Sold for
- $1.3 million (including buyer’s premium) · GBP 771,500
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Provenance
by 1840
A gift from the Artist to his physician, Dr. Fritz von Rosenberg, Dresden, and thence by descent to the present owners (Christie's)
1970
Still in Wuppertal-Barmen with the descendants of Dr. Fritz von Rosenberg when first published by Werner Sumowski (Christie's)
1999-10-07
Sold Christie's, London, from the Rosenberg descendants
2000
Acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Wrightsman Fund, 2000 (accession 2000.51)
Sources
- Christie's lot page: Caspar David Friedrich, Zwei Männer in Betrachtung des Mondes (7 Oct 1999)
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Two Men Contemplating the Moon (2000.51)
Prices include the buyer’s premium, in US dollars at the time of sale, unless marked as a hammer price.