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Ruin by the Sea
About the Artwork
The dark, ruined villa in this painting is made especially mysterious by the strange cypress trees tossed by the wind. A nervous green light flickers through the scene. Influenced by German Romantic art of the early 1800s, Böcklin was preoccupied with dreamlike images suggestive of death.
Inscriptions
Signed lower left: A B
Provenance
C. Wetter-Rüsch, St. Gallen, by 1893. Hermann Nabel, Berlin 1897. Kunsthandel Eduard Schulte, Berlin 1902. E. Junghanns, Schramberg. Paul Landenberger Jr., Schramberg. Zürich sale, Max G. Bollag, 23 March 1933 (lot 107), Ruine am Meer, reproduced. Private collection, Zürich. Fischer Fine Art, London. Purchased by the cma on 17 August 1979.
Exhibition history
Year in Review: 1979. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (February 13-March 9, 1980). Visions of Landscape: East and West. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 17-March 21, 1982). Object in Focus: Ruin by the Sea by Arnold Böcklin. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 9-March 14, 1999). Hitchcock and Art: Fatal Coincidences. Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Quebec, Canada (organizer) (November 16, 2000-March 18, 2001); Centre national d'art et de culture Georges Pompidou, Paris cedex O4, France (June 6-September 24, 2001).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Arnold Böcklin (Swiss, 1827–1901)
- Date
- 1881
- Medium
- oil on fabric
- Dimensions
- Framed: 132.1 x 102.9 x 8.3 cm (52 x 40 1/2 x 3 1/4 in.); Unframed: 111 x 82 cm (43 11/16 x 32 5/16 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- Modern European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund
- Accession no.
- 1979.57
More by Arnold Böcklin in museum collections
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 7, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00000265
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