The Painter 282 THE DRESDEN HOLDINGS With thirteen7 paintings by Caspar David Friedrich, the collection of the Albertinum in Dresden contains a representative cross-section of the artist’s painterly oeuvre, which was created between 1807 and 1835. Among these holdings are key works from all phases of Friedrich’s career, which provided the best starting point for continuing where Kristina Mösl left off with her technical investigation of the Friedrich collection at Berlin’s Alte Nationalgalerie.8 Her extensive interdisciplinary analysis campaign served as a template that makes the individual findings available for further comparative scientific analyses.9 In addition to an in-depth visual examination of the paintings, including under a stereo microscope, various other non-invasive imaging methods were used. For instance, X-radiography made it possible to determine the different supports as well as the successive layers of ground and paint. Infrared reflectography was used to reveal Friedrich’s detailed underdrawings as well as pentimenti made by the artist during the painting phase. Ultraviolet fluorescence provided crucial information about the state and composition of the varnish layers. To identify Friedrich’s pigments, the localised X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis was supplemented by analytical examinations of minuscule paint-layer samples taken from the far edges of the paintings.10 The results of the scientific analyses are of particular importance in the case of the Dresden painting Landscape with a Bare Tree (fig. 2), which was thought to be a very early oil painting by Friedrich, made around 1798 while he was still a student. Doubts about the painting’s autograph status had been raised on stylistic grounds and were further fuelled by the analysis of the infrared reflectogram, as the crude, ill-considered lines of the pencil underdrawing could not be reconciled with Friedrich’s drawings from around 1798. Finally, pigment analysis revealed the presence of chrome yellow and cobalt blue, two pigments that did not appear in easel painting until 1810.11 This invalidates the identification of the Landscape with a Bare Tree as an early work by Caspar David Friedrich. STATES OF PRESERVATION The technical analyses are greatly facilitated by the good to very good condition of the Dresden paintings. Four of the thirteen works have never 1 Caspar David Friedrich The Cross in the Mountains | 1807/1808 Detail from fig. 1, p. 239 Crucifix with coloured highlights on thin brown underpainting. Traces of underdrawing visible in places. 2 Unknown artist (attr. Caspar David Friedrich until 2024) Landscape with a Bare Tree | hitherto dated 1798/1799 Oil on canvas, 36.5 × 43.5 cm Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Albertinum, Gal.-Nr. 83/01 Recent scientific analyses have disproved the attribution to Friedrich.
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