Footbridge with Cross before Trees at a River (c.1803): Art, History and Details

Footbridge with Cross before Trees at a River (c.1803) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Caspar David Friedrich (German, 1774–1840).

The work and its context

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

Landscape was Caspar David Friedrich’s preferred subject, and for him spending time outdoors was a religious and transcendent experience. Here, the artist presented the terrain of Northern Germany as expansive and emphasized the smallness of man next to God’s creation. The fine, dense etched lines used to depict the landscape are juxtaposed with the broad strokes that make up the sky and horizon. Friedrich experimented with printmaking for only five years, and this print is one of just a few existing impressions.

Object facts

• Title: Footbridge with Cross before Trees at a River
• Date: c.1803
• Creator attribution: Caspar David Friedrich (German, 1774–1840)
• Culture: Germany, 19th century
• Type: Print
• Technique: etching
• Dimensions: Sheet: 19.9 x 28 cm (7 13/16 x 11 in.); Image: 8.8 x 14 cm (3 7/16 x 5 1/2 in.); Platemark: 9.2 x 15.2 cm (3 5/8 x 6 in.)
• Collection: PR - Etching
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 2006.133

Collection credit

Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland

Further reading listed by the museum

• Glaubinger, Jane, "Generous Donors", Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 47 no. 07, September

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.