Musicale at the Prellers' (1838): Art, History and Details

Musicale at the Prellers' (1838) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Friedrich Preller (German, 1804–1878).

The work and its context

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

This drawing depicts an afternoon or evening soirée hosted by Preller, a renowned German landscape painter, and his wife. The piano is the focus of the domestic social gathering. Among the young women gathered around the instrument are two sisters, Malvina and Olinda (with the eye patch), daughters of a professor of aesthetics, Fredrich Bouterweck. Olinda studied painting with Preller and was very close to the artist’s family. Preller’s sons called her "aunt Olinda," and she appears in several of Preller’s drawings from the 1830s and ’40s, easily identifiable by the eye patch.

Object facts

• Title: Musicale at the Prellers'
• Date: 1838
• Creator attribution: Friedrich Preller (German, 1804–1878)
• Culture: Germany, 19th century
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: graphite
• Dimensions: Sheet: 31.3 x 41.4 cm (12 5/16 x 16 5/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - German
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1976.7

Collection credit

Delia E. Holden Fund

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.