Lilac (1800–1805): Art, History and Details

Lilac (1800–1805) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Philipp Otto Runge (German, 1777–1810).

The work and its context

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

Lilac belongs to a series of cut-out silhouettes created by Philipp Otto Runge around the early 1800s. Each presents a plant or flower in exacting detail, including each petal and leaf. The technique used was a traditional folk practice, which Runge learned early on from his mother. He ultimately produced well over one hundred such works, which he occasionally gave as gifts; this work, for example, was offered by the artist to the Specktors, a Hamburg based family of artists.

Object facts

• Title: Lilac
• Date: 1800–1805
• Creator attribution: Philipp Otto Runge (German, 1777–1810)
• Culture: Germany
• Type: Print
• Technique: Silhouette cut from off-white laid paper mounted to modern blue laid paper
• Dimensions: Sheet: 39.4 x 27 cm (15 1/2 x 10 5/8 in.); Matted: 55.9 x 40.6 cm (22 x 16 in.)
• Collection: Prints
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 2023.120

A detail from the museum

Plants and landscape were one of Philipp Otto Runge’s favorite subjects and he once wrote “Is there not then in this new art—call it landscape if you like—a highest point to be achieved?”

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Richter, Cornelia. Philipp Otto Runge: Ich weiβ eine schöne Blume, Werkverzeichnis der Scherenschnitte (Munich: Schirmer, 1981).
• Kunst des 19. Jahrhunderts (Berlin: Grisebach, 2023).

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.