Rübezahl

Adrian Ludwig Richter

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A leading painter and printmaker of the later Romantic period in Germany, Richter produced numerous works inspired by fairytales. This composition is based on an etching he made in 1848 and shows the gnome king Rübezahl addressing a young girl whom he loves, resting near a mountainside stream with several children. Previous to this scene, the gnome had assumed the guise of a raven to spy on the group (indicated in the drawing by the black bird perched on a rock at the right). Richter focuses here, however, upon the moment when Rübezahl assumes human form to beguile his beloved. Eventually, he will carry her off to his underground realm.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art