The Splendor of Germany: 18th-century Drawings from the Crocker Art Museum

Selected from the Crocker Art Museum’s renowned collection of German drawings — one of the finest and earliest in the United States — this exhibition examines the major developments in German draughtsmanship over the course of the 18th century.

With such artists as Johann Wolfgang Baumgartner, Anton Raphael Mengs, and Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein, the exhibition celebrates the inventive beauty of German art, from the flowering of the Baroque to measured Neoclassicism. One of the greatest strengths of the exhibition is the landscape tradition, which can be traced from Johann Georg Wille through the ravishing works of two generations of pupils. This exhibition celebrates the 150th anniversary of the acquisition of the E. B. Crocker Collection of drawings.

Image: Christoph Nathe, Landscape near Görlitz, 1786. Pen and brown ink, brush and brown washes over graphite on cream laid paper, 38.0 x 51.4 cm. Crocker Art Museum, E. B. Crocker Collection, 1871.85