Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
The Jewish Cemetery in Prague
Adolph Menzel German
Not on view
This painting, with its bold experimental technique, probably records a fleeting moment during Menzel’s 1852 stay in Prague, where he visited the famous Old Jewish Cemetery. Menzel relied on the imaginative power of vision to resolve the image: ambiguous, broad strokes form the tombstones; a blending of contours nearly merges the treetops and leaden sky; and, in the middle ground, lighter tones shine through scraped-off layers of paint. Although it would have been considered incomplete according to the academic terms of the time, it is unlikely that Menzel intended to bring this work to a higher degree of finish. The work remained unsigned in the artist’s studio; it was first shown in the artist’s commemorative retrospective in 1905.
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