Kneeling Pilgrim with Cross and Book
Medium
Etching on white wove paper
Dimensions
Plate: 11.3 × 7.5 cm (4 1/2 × 3 in.); Sheet: 14.2 × 10.2 cm (5 5/8 × 4 1/16 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
141444
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Executed during Johann Friedrich Overbeck’s stay in Rome, Kneeling Pilgrim with Cross and Book provides the viewer with an insight into the artist’s spiritual conviction. Overbeck, a founding member of the Brotherhood of Saint Luke, or the Nazarene movement, viewed art as a way to regenerate religiosity in society. The Nazarenes showed their devotion to God by adapting the styles and ideas of the Renaissance. Overbeck’s sophisticated use of etching, exemplified by delicate cross-hatching and fin...
About the Artist
Johann Friedrich Overbeck · 1789–1869
**Johann Friedrich Overbeck** (3 July 1789 – 12 November 1869) was a German painter and a founder of the Nazarene movement. Born in Lübeck into a prominent Protestant family—his father, Christian Adolph Overbeck, was a doctor of law, poet, mystic pietist, and burgomaster—he received early classical and artistic instruction at the local Gymnasium under his uncle. Overbeck left Lübeck in 1806 to st...