Friedrich Eduard Pape
(1817 - Berlin - 1905)

Forest Stream in the Harz Mountains
1836

Oil on paper mounted on cardboard
Signed lower left E. Pape

23.8 x 31.8 cm

Inscribed on the verso Friedrich Eduard Pape / Waldbach im Harz 1836.

Friedrich Eduard Pape was the son of the porcelain painter Friedrich Pape. He enrolled at the Berlin Academy of Arts at an early age and studied under Carl Blechen. Blechen was professor of landscape painting at the Academy from 1831 until 1836 when the first signs of his eventual breakdown appeared.

Pape was only nineteen - and already displaying prodigious talent - when he painted the present study on a visit to the Harz Mountains. Blechen's influence is clearly felt. Irmgard Wirth rightly points out that Pape and Bellermann are the only two students of Blechen who are remembered today.[1]

Blechen himself had visited the Harz region in autumn 1833, recording his sojourn in a large body of sketches. It is entirely possible that Pape had the opportunity to study these drawings and was motivated by them to visit the Harz himself. This he did three years later.[2] Later on, Pape went on a number of Blechen's study trips. In 1882, writing to the author Theodor Fontane, he commented: The painting trips were also trips filled with play and enjoyment. [Blechen] sketched ancient trees in an inspired manner, his hand sure and firm and our eyes were glued to him as he worked, observing his technique and so witnessing the birth of a work of art.[3]

After completing his studies Pape continued to work in the landscape genre. He made numerous trips to the Tyrol, Switzerland and Italy. It was only towards the latter part of his life that he was to turn to large-format decorative schemes. It is interesting to note that Blechen himself had trained as a scene painter and stage designer. From 1849 to 1853 Pape played an active role in work on the interior design of the Neue Museum in Berlin. Then under construction, the Museum was planned and built by the Royal architect Friedrich August Stüler (1800-65). Pape assisted in the completion of extensive decorative schemes and architectural models for the museum's Greek and Roman collections. In 1853, he was appointed a Royal professor and member of the Berlin Academy in recognition of his lifetime achievement. He was the winner of important prizes in Paris in 1855 and in Berlin in 1864.[4]

[1] Irmgard Wirth, Berliner Malerei im 19. Jahrhundert. Von der Zeit Friedrichs des Großen bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg, Berlin 1990, p.117. Blechen reported on Pape's artistic progress in the Verzeichnis der Schüler der Classe für Landschaftszeichnung von Ostern bis Michaelis 1834, describing him as a pupil assigned to the discipline of decorative painting who appeared to be 'reasonably proficient' and 'making good progress'. See Friederike Sack, Carl Blechens Landschaften - Untersuchungen zur theoretischen und technischen Werkgenese, Diss., Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich 2010, p.194.
[2] Blechen encouraged his pupils to copy his sketches. See F. Sack, Carl Blechens Landschaften ..., 2010, p.195.
[3] Die Malfahrten waren zugleich auch Turn- und Vergnügungsfahrten; in genialster Weise, mit rascher, sicherer Hand zeichnete er [Blechen] alte Bäume, und wir folgten seiner Hand und seiner Technik und sahen es entstehen, Deutscher Verein für Kunstwissenschaft (ed.), Karl Blechen: Leben, Würdigungen, Werk, Berlin 1940, p.87.
[4] For details of Pape's biography see Friedrich von Boetticher, Malerwerke des Neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, II, Leipzig 1942, p.214-16; Das geistige Deutschland am Ende des XIX. Jahrhunderts: Enzyklopädie des deutschen Geisteslebens in biographischen Skizzen, I, Leipzig and Berlin 1898, p.507.