The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 18, 2025

Youth Playing a Lyre to a Maiden by a Fountain

1803

Carl Wilhelm I Kolbe

(German, 1757–1835)
Germany, 19th century
etching on heavy wove paper
Image: 38.7 x 51.1 cm (15 1/4 x 20 1/8 in.); Plate: 40.7 x 52.9 cm (16 x 20 13/16 in.); Sheet: 45.7 x 59.7 cm (18 x 23 1/2 in.)
Gift of Virginia Barbato 2019.243
Catalogue raisonné: Jentsch 230; Martens 95
Location: Not on view

Did You Know?

Carl Wilhelm Kolbe was nicknamed Eichenkolbem (Oak Kolbe) for his devotion to trees, which he credited with inspiring him to become an artist.

Description

Youth Playing a Lyre to a Maiden by a Fountain features seated lovers singled out by the light that strikes their upper bodies, which counters the overwhelming scale of the fantastical growth of vegetation surrounding them. Carl Wilhelm Kolbe’s “vegetable sheets” broke new ground in Germany around 1800 by focusing on giant vegetation, allowing the viewer to experience the mysterious life in the undergrowth, a place untouched by humankind. Here, the vegetation is magnified, filling almost the entire sheet, and creating a distorted and somewhat surreal perspective combined with the meticulous observation of botanical details.
  • Private Collection, Germany
    2019
    (C.G. Boerner, New York, NY)
    December 2, 2019
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Jentsch, Ernst. Der Radierer Carl Wilhelm Kolbe, 1757 Berlin – 1835 Dessau. PhD diss., Schlesische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Breslau, 1920 no. 230
    Martens, Ulf. Der Zeichner und Radierer Carl Wilhelm Kolbe d. Ä. (1759-1835). Berline: Gebr. Mann, 1976 no. 95 (only state)
    Griffiths, Antony, and Frances Carey. German Printmaking in the Age of Goethe. London: Published for the Trustees of the British Museum by British Museum Press, 1994. no. 72
    Michels, Norbert, Markus Bertsch, Carl Wilhelm Kolbe D.ä. (1759-1835): Künstler, Philologe, Patriot. Anhaltischen Gemäldegalerie Dessau, 2009 Bd. 15: p. 244, no. 62
    Bartrum, Giulia. German Romantic Prints and Drawings: From an English Private Collection. London: Contemporary Editions, 2011. p. 204-05, no. 62
    Philadelphia Museum of Art, John W. Ittmann, Cordula Grewe, Warren Breckman, Mitchell Benjamin Frank, Catriona MacLeod, and F. Carlo Schmid. The Enchanted World of German Romantic Prints, 1770-1850. 2017. p. 300-01, fig. 265, p. 278, no. 145
  • Imagination in the Age of Reason. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 28, 2024-March 2, 2025).
  • {{cite web|title=Youth Playing a Lyre to a Maiden by a Fountain|url=false|author=Carl Wilhelm I Kolbe|year=1803|access-date=18 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2019.243