signed and dated ‘Troll 1781’
pen and black ink, grey wash
22.7 x 32.7 cm

Under the influence of Swiss artist Adrian Zingg (1734-1816) draughtsmanship flourished in Germany and Switzerland in the 18th and 19th centuries. Zingg taught a host of talented artists, including Carl August Richter (1770-1848), Phillip Veith (1793-1877) and Johann Heinrich Troll, the artist who executed this fine landscape drawing. Troll worked in Zingg’s studio for seven years, [1] staying in Dresden from 1781-1782 before travelling more widely in Europe. During his Dresden period the artist visited the city’s surrounding countryside with fellow artists Conrad Gessner and Friedrich Ludwig Oeser during which he recorded the landscape in carefully-executed drawings. While the exact location of the view here has not been identified, the date and style of the sheet confirm that it must depict a landscape near Dresden. The largest number of drawings depicting the landscape around Dresden, all closely comparable to the present sheet, can be found in the Albertina, Vienna. [2]

[1] P. Kuhlmann-Hodick ed., Adrian Zingg. Wegbereiter der Romantik, exhib. cat., Dresdem, Kupferstich-Kabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Zurich, Kunsthaus Zürich, 2012, p. 226.
[2] See, for particularly closely related examples, inv. 6791 and 6799.