After training as an engraver in his native Switzerland and working in Paris, Zingg moved in 1766 to Dresden, where he joined the faculty of the newly established Academy of Fine Arts. Combining topographical accuracy with a penchant for the picturesque, and taking inspiration from the local environment, his drawings paved the way for the Romantic landscape tradition that developed in Dresden in the nineteenth century. This large sheet depicts the Keppmühle—a charming mill that was one of the most popular excursion sites for Dresdeners at the time. The landscape is rendered in Zingg’s characteristically ornamental style, with extensive application of sepia washes and skilled use of the white of the paper, creating an enchanting impression of illumination.

This large sepia study attentively renders a constellation of boulders, stones, and pebbles scattered on a beach. Infused with quiet melancholy and devoid of signs of human presence, the work explores atmospheric conditions and the effects of light. It is difficult to know whether the luminous celestial body at the center of the composition is supposed to represent the moon or the sun. In either case, Friedrich’s predominant concern is depicting the moment of transition between night and day, darkness and light.

Rügen—a large island in the Baltic Sea, off the coast of Germany—was an important destination for Friedrich. The drawings he made during his numerous trips to the area focus on dramatic chalk cliffs and rugged, stony beaches, capturing the island’s austere, windswept character. In this sheet, the artist reduced the Rügen landscape to its most essential features, relying on clear, precise contours and sparingly applied washes. Friedrich frequently used the landscape motifs he developed in such works as the basis for highly finished sepia drawings, such as Stony Beach at Moonrise (Stony Beach with Setting Sun), on view nearby. In order to transfer his compositions to other formats, Friedrich often squared his sketches, as is the case here.

Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, one of the most important works of medieval literature, was first translated into German at the turn of the nineteenth century. It immediately became a rich source of inspiration for Romantic artists; Koch alone produced over two hundred drawings and a large number of prints illustrating the text. In this sheet, the artist focused on the tale of Francesca and Paolo, who fall in love upon reading the story of the legendary knight Lancelot. While the couple is gently embracing in Francesca’s bedchamber at right, the left side of the composition is dedicated to the enraged, seething figure of Gianciotto— Francesca’s husband and Paolo’s brother—who has just discovered the illicit affair.

In his self-portrait of 1817, Rehbenitz describes his intense gaze with precise and controlled draftsmanship. Feathery networks of graphite lines carefully establish the shadows over his face; the highly finished study is exactingly rendered throughout, apart from the loose curls at left, which remain as more animated traces of the artist’s hand at work. Rehbenitz produced this signed and dated drawing a year after moving to Rome from Vienna, where he had been studying at the Academy of Fine Arts. In Rome, Rehbenitz joined the circle of German artists known as the Nazarenes, forming a Protestant faction of the group with Friedrich Olivier and Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, whose work is on view nearby.

In this drawing, Horny treats the delicate lily branch as a monumental form. Placed against a vivid green-blue background, the flower fills almost the entire space of the sheet. Through the combination of pen and ink, graphite, and translucent watercolor, the topography of individual petals is carefully described. The dark background, composed of richly layered washes, further enhances the lily’s palpable three-dimensionality. Although the drawing would seem to be an end in itself, it is connected to the artist’s work on the ceiling decoration of the Dante Hall at the Casino Massimo in Rome.

On a forested hill overlooking the Villa Piccolomini near Frascati, two young men in Renaissance-style dress break from their pastoral concert as two women approach. Though the characters that populate Schnorr von Carolsfeld’s scene are imaginary, the detailed landscape punctuated by brightly lit trees, skillfully described using the reserve of the sheet, derives from firsthand study. During the artist’s extensive travels in Italy from 1818 to 1827, he produced over one hundred landscape drawings, which were later bound in an album. Reflecting on these Italian works in 1867, Schnorr von Carolsfeld reminisced about the “ten exceedingly happy days” he spent in the countryside around the Villa Piccolomini, where he made this drawing.

A key figure among German artists who lived and worked in Rome in the early nineteenth century, Schnorr von Carolsfeld received his initial training at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. This tender depiction of the ten-year-old Maria Heller dates to the end of his stay in that city. The artist captured the young girl as she slept, with her head and shoulder resting on a large pillow, and her feet protruding from underneath a light blanket. Schnorr von Carolsfeld’s use of crisp contours, sparing application of washes and hatching, and brilliant exploitation of the white of the paper itself result in an airy, ethereal image.

Made during Richter’s three-year stay in Italy, this drawing captures the vast, scenic landscape of the Roman countryside. The undulating hills extend rhythmically into the distance; they are composed of interchanging areas of gray and brownish washes, and sections of paper left blank. In the foreground, pious countrypeople are making their way to a small chapel located in a shaded valley at left. Unlike most of the landscape, the figures are rendered in outline only. While this gives the drawing an unfinished appearance, the artist likely left this area deliberately unworked to emphasize the impression of a radiant, sun-drenched Italian landscape.

Oehme’s vibrant watercolor shows a view of the mountainous Rigi area of Switzerland, which he visited in August 1825 on his return home to Dresden after a three-year stay in Italy. The artist used clear contours to define the unfolding mountain ridges, which are stacked in colored tiers, thereby communicating an expansive recession away from the viewer toward distant snowcapped peaks. The sheet is part of a group of watercolors and paintings based on the sketches that Oehme made during the trip. The finished works focus on the austerity and vastness of the Alpine terrain, omitting all references to the tourism industry that flourished in the region at the time.