The Sea of Ice | |
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German: Das Eismeer | |
Artist | Caspar David Friedrich |
Year | 1823–1824 |
Medium | Oil on canvas |
Dimensions | 96.7 cm × 126.9 cm (38 in × 49.9 in) |
Location | Kunsthalle Hamburg, Hamburg |
The Sea of Ice, (German: Das Eismeer) (1823–1824), is an oil painting that depicts a shipwreck in the Arctic by the German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich. Before 1826 this painting was known as The Polar Sea.[1]
The work was first exhibited at the Prague Academy exhibition in 1824 with the title An Idealized Scene of an Arctic Sea, with a Wrecked Ship on the Heaped Masses of Ice.[2] Considered one of Friedrich's masterpieces, the radical composition and subject matter were unusual for their time and the work was met with incomprehension. The painting was still unsold when Friedrich died in 1840.[2] It is currently held by the Kunsthalle Hamburg, Germany.