The Draughtsman 134 Its attractions were drawn to public attention by Wilhelm Gottlieb Becker in his account Der Plauische Grund … (or “The Plauenscher Grund near Dresden with Reference to Natural History and the Art of Landscape Gardening”), published in 1799.7 It was illustrated with copperplates engraved by Johann Adolph Darnstedt after drawings by Klengel.8 Before Plauen, Potschappel and Rabenau became popular, Tharandt, with its medieval castle ruins, was the better-known destination for walkers. The ensemble of ruins, church and houses was depicted by Adrian Zingg9 and Klengel, as well as by etchers and copper engravers like Philipp Veith or Carl August Richter and Johann Friedrich Wizani, who reproduced the motif in prints. Anton Graff, Carl Gustav Carus, Christian Gottlob Hammer, Karl Gottfried Traugott Faber and Ludwig Richter also found motifs for their compositions here. Friedrich depicted the ruins on several occasions (fig. 1), including in a drawing on a sheet 3 Johann Georg Wagner Hilly Landscape with Boulder, Cottages, and Flock of Sheep on the Road Tempera, 203 × 242 mm Vienna, Albertina Museum, Grafische Sammlung, inv. 4752 1 Caspar David Friedrich Castle Ruins in Tharandt, Tree Study 1/2 May 1800 | CAT 40 2 Caspar David Friedrich Ruins, Church and Houses in Tharandt c. 1799 | CAT 21 now in Berlin, where he adopted a viewpoint that Klengel had already selected for a painting – although under different light conditions.10 Friedrich probably knew Klengel’s composition, at least in the form of one of three reproductive prints made after it,11 one of which, a copper engraving, to illustrate the above-mentioned book by Becker.12 In 1799 Friedrich made a pencil drawing of the ruins which he then went over in pen and ink (fig. 2), omitting, however, the tree-dotted slope above the line of the lake shore, which appears in pencil only. In another drawing, meanwhile, he did the opposite, going over the slope in pen and ink, but not the ruins.13 Thus, in each drawing, he concentrated on a different part of an envisaged whole resembling Klengel’s model. Yet Friedrich also depicted the glassworks, the Königsmühle and Neumühle flourmills and the powder mill, modest buildings in the Plauenscher Grund that presaged its transformation into an industrial zone (fig. 7, p.152).14 The composition of these gouaches, showing centre ground and
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