The Artists on Their Journey (1819): Art, History and Details

The Artists on Their Journey (1819) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Johann Adam Klein (German, 1792–1875).

The work and its context

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

This image was created to capture the memory of a walking tour by the artist and four friends through the Salzburg-Berchtesgaden region of the Alps in August, 1818. Klein depicted his friends—all artists—with backpacks, easels, and satchels for carrying their artist’s materials. Artists working in the Romantic era placed importance on travel as a path to self-knowledge and creative inspiration.

Object facts

• Title: The Artists on Their Journey
• Date: 1819
• Creator attribution: Johann Adam Klein (German, 1792–1875)
• Culture: Germany, 19th century
• Type: Print
• Technique: etching on wove paper
• Dimensions: Plate: 24.5 x 30.3 cm (9 5/8 x 11 15/16 in.); Sheet: 29.3 x 34 cm (11 9/16 x 13 3/8 in.)
• Collection: PR - Etching
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 2018.304

A detail from the museum

The artists portrayed in this print were friends who walked through the Bavarian Alps together in 1818 in order to sketch the alpine landscapes they encountered.

Collection credit

Gift of Margaret and Peter Dobbins in honor of the 100th anniversary of the Print Club of Cleveland

Further reading listed by the museum

• Jahn, Carl. Das Werk von Johann Adam Klein, Maler und Kupferätzer zu München, Mitglied der kgl. Akademic der Künste zu Berlin. Munich: Verlag der Montmorrilon’schen Kunsthandlung, 1863
• Zimmerman, Antje, and Ursula Peters. Deutsche Graphik des Klassizismus und der Romantik: Aus dem bestand der Graphischen Sammlung des Von der Heydt-Museums Wuppertal. Edited by Sabine Fehlemann. Wuppertal:Von der Heydt-Museum, 1989,
• Seeliger, Stephan, and Norbert Suhr. Unter Glas un Rahmen: Druckgraphik der Romantik aus den Beständen des Landesmuseums Mainz und aus Privatbesitz. Exh. Cat., Landesmuseum Mainz, 1993

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.