Mountain Path with a Tree

Friedrich Nerly

1825–35 · Graphite, watercolor, and gouache on blue paper · Drawings and Prints

This sheet exhibits a remarkably free and expressive use of watercolor to capture a wooded landscape animated by wind and shifting light. Applied wet-on-wet, the colors bleed together, suggesting a murky tangle of damp foliage and brush from which rises a twisting tree, its branches spiraling upward. At lower left, blades of grass are reflected in the glassy surface of a brook. Trained in Hamburg, Nerly spent almost his entire career in Italy. This sheet probably dates from his early years in Germany or his time in Rome, before he settled in Venice in 1837.

Artist

Friedrich Nerly

Date

1825–35

Medium

Graphite, watercolor, and gouache on blue paper

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Purchase, Jean A. Bonna Gift and Van Day Truex Fund, 2008