Portrait of the Poet Friedrich Ludwig Zacharias Werner
Medium
Graphite
Dimensions
sheet: 5 7/8 x 4 5/16 in. (14.9 x 11 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, C. G. Boerner Gift, 2009
Accession Number
2009.62
Tags
Art Historical Context
This delicate graphite portrait, created between 1810 and 1819 by Ludwig Ferdinand Schnorr von Carolsfeld, depicts the German poet and playwright Friedrich Ludwig Zacharias Werner. A key figure in early Romanticism, Werner was celebrated for his mystical and religious dramas that explored themes of fate, spirituality, and human emotion. The drawing’s intimate scale—just under six inches tall—suggests it was made as a personal study rather than a formal commission, capturing the subject’s contemplative gaze with quiet intensity. Schnorr von Carolsfeld, working in the same Romantic circles as h...
About the Artist
Ludwig Ferdinand Schnorr von Carolsfeld · 1788–1853
Ludwig Ferdinand Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1788–1853) was a German Romantic painter, engraver, and lithographer who spent most of his life in Vienna, becoming a pivotal figure in the city's artistic circles. Born in Königsberg to artist Veit Hanns Schnorr von Carolsfeld, he trained initially under his father before moving to Vienna at age sixteen. There, he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in 18...