About the Work
Peter Burnitz probably used this landscape sketchbook in June 1845 and March 1846 while hiking through Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, and occasionally in 1847. The drawings are from the time he studied law in Berlin, Göttingen, and Heidelberg between 1844 and 1847, and from the year of his doctorate and admission as a lawyer in Frankfurt am Main, also in 1847 (see the second sketchbook Burnitz used during his studies, Inv. SG 2359, Städel Museum).
The pencil drawings, which the young Burnitz included in his sketchbook, are occasionally coloured with brushes in mostly delicate tones: he captured views of the Neckar, Tauber, Main and Isenach, the Odenwald and Palatinate Forest, and the towns of Eberbach and Wertheim in Baden-Württemberg, and in particular drew medieval ruins such as the Limburg monastery ruins in Rhineland-Palatinate. Occasionally, he studied rock formations and trees as well as animals. Occasionally, figures also found their way into his book, among them isolated drawings of possible travel companions, some of which Burnitz created as individual studies or while resting.
The drawings, which are often put down on paper at random – as changing dates and the fact that some depictions are upside down reveal ‒, are an indication of the increasingly skilled hand of the still young draughtsman despite some discrepancies in perspective. Two studies of harnessed horses are a good example of this; the former, drawn in a sketchbook used a few years earlier (SG 2357, sheet 10 recto), seems comparatively awkward, the latter, recorded on sheet 18 verso in this book, is drawn with a visibly more confident stroke.
On sheet 12 recto, a poem by Novalis can be found, which he probably wrote down for Burnitz during a hike through Baden-Württemberg in 1845, or a friend he had met in Tübingen wrote it down for Burnitz as a “souvenir”.
For a full sketchbook description, please see “Research”.
