The Forest Maiden (1845): Art, History and Details
The Forest Maiden at the Cleveland Museum of Art: 1845, etching on steel on wove paper. Explore the work's context, creator attribution and collection history.
The Forest Maiden (1845) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Wendelin Wick (German, active 1842–1853); Eugen Napoleon Neureuther (German, 1806–1862).
The work and its context
The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:
The story of The Forest Maiden tells of female demon who inhabits the forest and appears as a beautiful woman to tempt and prey upon unwitting men. This prints shows several different scenes of seduction, placed through an elaborately woven forest canopy. Eugen Neureuther made this elaborate etching depicting the tale during a revival of interest in folk tales in Germany in the early 19th century.
Object facts
- Title: The Forest Maiden
- Date: 1845
- Creator attribution: Wendelin Wick (German, active 1842–1853); Eugen Napoleon Neureuther (German, 1806–1862)
- Culture: Germany, 19th century
- Type: Print
- Technique: etching on steel on wove paper
- Dimensions: Plate: 72 x 53 cm (28 3/8 x 20 7/8 in.); Sheet: 81 x 62 cm (31 7/8 x 24 7/16 in.)
- Collection: PR - Etching
- Department: Prints
- Accession number: 2018.303
A detail from the museum
Folk tales that featured a young maiden falling in love with a prince were very popular in 19th-century Germany, well before Walt Disney!
Collection credit
Gift of Stephen Dull
Further reading listed by the museum
- Nagler, G.K. Neues allgemeines Kunstler-Lexikon, oder Nachrichten von dem Leben und den Werken der Maler, Bildhauer, Baumeister, Kupferstecher, Formschneider, Lithographen, Zeichner, Medailleure, Elfenbeinarbeiter, etc. 22 vols. Munich: E.A. Fleischman, 1835
- Andresen, Andreas, continued by J. E. Wessely. Die Deutschen Maler-Radirer des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, nach ihren Leben und Werken. Leipzig: Alexander Danz, 1877
- Schuberth, Max. “Eugen Napoleon Neureuthers Leben und graphisches Werk: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der romantischen Bildkunst.” PhD diss., Ludwig-Maximilian-Universität, Munich, 1926, no. II.
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.
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