Edouard Gaertner - The Friedrichsgracht, Berlin [1830s]

Edouard Gaertner - The Friedrichsgracht, Berlin [1830s], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Eduard Gaertner is best known for his panoramic views of Berlin, which are painted in a naturalistic style fusing accuracy with a sensitive rendering of light and atmosphere. After training at the Berlin Academy he was apprenticed to the court theatre painter Karl Wilhelm Gropius, and from 1825-28 he worked under Bertin in Paris. Back in Berlin, his watercolours and oils depicting the everyday life of the city gained him the patronage of the King of Prussia Wilhelm III and of the Czar Nicholas I in Moscow and St Petersburg.

The Friedrichsgracht was a canal that ran though the centre of Berlin. While it still survives in present day Berlin, much of the area has been rebuilt since the Second World War. The striking composition, dominated by the geometrical precision of the zinc roof in the foreground, is typical of Gaertner's work.

[Oil on paper laid down on millboard, 25.5 x 44.6 cm]