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Description: Personen in altdeutscher Tracht in Betrachtung einer mittelalterlichen Stadt oil on canvas 14.3/8 x 6.1/8in. (36.5 x 15.5cm.), with an arched top PROVENANCE Acquired by Dr Marianne Prause in the late 1960s. NOTES The authenticity of this work has been kindly confirmed by Professor Helmut Brsch-Supan, Berlin. Carl Gustav Carus began to exhibit at the Dresden Academy in 1816, but it was his meeting with Caspar David Friedrich in the following year that was to have the deepest impact on his painting. The two men quickly formed a close friendship, travelling together around the countryside of Saxony searching for motifs for their paintings. In 1824 Carus commented on Friedrich: 'Es ist eine Tiefe des Gefhls in ihm, wie ich noch in wenig Menschen gefunden und dabei eine hohe Reinheit und Liebe zu allem Guten' (quoted in M. Prause, Carl Gustav Carus - Leben und Werk, Berlin, 1968, p. 13). In the present work Carus takes Friedrich's characteristic Sllermotiv of contemplative figures standing on a balcony overlooking a romantic landscape - see, for example, Friedrich's Die Schwestern auf dem Sller am Hafen (B.S. 263).