Falls of the Rhine at Schaffhausen (Rheinfall von Schaffhausen) (1885): Art, History and Details

Falls of the Rhine at Schaffhausen (Rheinfall von Schaffhausen) (1885) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Adolph von Menzel (German, 1815–1905).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Menzel was one of the most celebrated and prolific painters in Germany during the 19th century. A meticulous draftsman, he executed detailed drawings in preparation for each of his paintings. Thousands of the artist’s notebook studies have survived. Many of them were studies of heads, half-figures, and landscape vignettes to be incorporated into his paintings. This sheet depicting a waterfall and bridge shrouded in mist is an example of one of Menzel’s exquisite graphite studies.

Object facts

• Title: Falls of the Rhine at Schaffhausen (Rheinfall von Schaffhausen)
• Date: 1885
• Creator attribution: Adolph von Menzel (German, 1815–1905)
• Culture: Germany, 19th century
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: graphite, with stumping (traces of white paint, along left edge, unrelated to composition)
• Dimensions: Sheet: 12.3 x 19.5 cm (4 13/16 x 7 11/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - German
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1985.147

Collection credit

Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Turner, Evan H. “The Year in Review for 1985.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 73, no. 2 (February 1986): 26–71.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.