Norwegian Seacoast During a Storm (1819): Art, History and Details

Norwegian Seacoast During a Storm (1819) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Johan Christian Clausen Dahl (Norwegian, 1788–1857).

The work and its context

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

Johan Christian Clausen Dahl depicted his native Norway in dramatic landscapes that used figures to evoke the grandiose scale of nature. This etching—one of four created by the artist—shows the aftermath of a storm. A ship floats damaged in the distance while a man and his dog sit despondent on a massive rock nearby. Dahl rendered the sky and churning waves in jagged etched lines that suggest the violent movement and force of the sea outside Bergen, where he grew up. He considered this composition to be among his very best works.

Object facts

• Title: Norwegian Seacoast During a Storm
• Date: 1819
• Creator attribution: Johan Christian Clausen Dahl (Norwegian, 1788–1857)
• Type: Print
• Technique: etching, open-bite, black ink
• Dimensions: Image: 10.9 x 14.6 cm (4 5/16 x 5 3/4 in.); Plate: 11.7 x 15 cm (4 5/8 x 5 7/8 in.); Sheet: 18.2 x 21.7 cm (7 3/16 x 8 9/16 in.)
• Collection: PR - Etching
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 2022.249

A detail from the museum

Johan Christian Clausen Dahl described this print in his diary as depicting “the morning after a stormy night where a man has escaped from a ship stranded on the rocks.”

Collection credit

Carole W. and Charles B. Rosenblatt Endowment 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.