Public data from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Learn more
About the Artwork
In this depiction of the Prater, a large public garden in Vienna, Austria, a man sits beside a tree in the left foreground. Brilliant sunlight floods into the park illuminating a multitude of trees, their leaves rendered with fine detail. Although celebrated for his portraits, Waldmüller also produced closely observed landscapes and often visited the Prater to paint the majestic oak trees. He was forced to retire from his position as a professor at the Vienna Academy for rejecting doctrines of idealized, moralizing art in favor of truth to nature based on direct observation.
Provenance
1865?: Herr von Beer ?: (Kunsthandlung Arnot, Vienna) By 1930: Private collection, Vienna Until 1937: Fritz Nathan, sold to Dr. Tobler 1937-: Dr. Tobler By 1943 - by 1945: Baron Robert von Hirsch [1883-1977], Basel, sold to Dr. Fritz Nathan By 1945: Dr. Fritz Nathan, St. Gallen, sold to a Swiss private collector By 1957: Private collection, Zurich Until 1983: (Galerie Nathan, Zürich, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) 1983-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
The Year in Review for 1983. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 22-April 8, 1984). Stories from Storage. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 7-May 16, 2021).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (Austrian, 1793–1865)
- Date
- c. 1831
- Medium
- oil on wood panel
- Dimensions
- Framed: 37.5 x 43.5 x 5.5 cm (14 3/4 x 17 1/8 x 2 3/16 in.); Unframed: 25 x 31 cm (9 13/16 x 12 3/16 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- Modern European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund
- Accession no.
- 1983.155
More by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller in museum collections
Portrait of Franz Jauner (Vienna 1832-1900 Vienna), Theater Director and Actor in Vienna
Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller1800–1865 · Drawing
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00009388
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