Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Two Lovers by a Fountain in a Landscape

Albrecht Altdorfer
approximately 1480-1538

Two Lovers by a Fountain in a Landscape

ca. 1509-1510
6 3/8 x 4 5/8 inches (168 x 119 mm)
Pen and black ink and white opaque watercolor on brown prepared paper.
2006.51

Thaw Collection.

Notes
The luxurious enhancement of this drawing, with pen and ink and opaque white watercolor on an embellished ground, suggests that it was made as an autonomous work rather than as a preparatory study for a painting. It was probably made to be given or sold to collectors. The drawing depicts a profane subject: the encounter of a pair of lovers who sit beside a small fountain from which water flows into a streamlet. Their horse is tethered to the splintered trunk of a tree; in the distance, behind the dense wood, is a castle flanked by a craggy range of mountains. -- Exhibition Label, from "Drawn to Greatness: Master Drawings from the Thaw Collection"
Associated names
Mechel, Christian von, 1737-1817, former owner.
Vischer, Peter, active 1800, former owner.
Burckhardt-Wildt, Daniel, 1752-1819, former owner.
Burckhardt-Werthemann, Daniel, former owner.
Kuhn, Claude, former owner.
Thaw, Eugene Victor, former owner.
Thaw, Clare, former owner.
Bibliography
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY, "Drawn to Greatness: Master Drawings from the Thaw Collection", 2017. Exh. cat., no. 1, repr.
Denison, Cara D. et al. The Thaw Collection : Master Drawings and New Acquisitions. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1994, no. 6.
From Leonardo to Pollock: Master drawings from the Morgan Library. New York: Morgan Library, 2006, cat. no. 54, p. 116-117.
100 Master drawings from the Morgan Library & Museum. München : Hirmer, 2008, no. 67, repr. [Cara Dafour Denison]
Classification
Century Drawings
School
Department