The Old Willow at a Brook (1794): Art, History and Details

The Old Willow at a Brook (1794) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Georg von Dillis (German, 1759–1841).

The work and its context

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

After an initial phase of classically influenced landscape painting, Dillis’s work achieved a newfound naturalism and freedom. He based this close-up view of a thicket on direct observation of nature. Dillis’s dense network of lines form a filigree-like pattern of trees and foliage. One of only two etchings that Dillis published during his lifetime, this informal composition and its loose style reveal the influence of Jacob van Ruisdael, a Dutch landscapist of the 17th century. In addition to being an artist, Dillis was an outstanding connoisseur and assembled a large print collection of his own. He became one of the first great German museum directors whose impact on the history of art was enormous.

Object facts

• Title: The Old Willow at a Brook
• Date: 1794
• Creator attribution: Georg von Dillis (German, 1759–1841)
• Culture: Germany, late 18th Century
• Type: Print
• Technique: etching
• Collection: PR - Etching
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1993.134

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• “1993 Annual Report.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 81, no. 6 (July 1994): 143–218.

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.