Adolph Friedrich Erdmann von Menzel (Breslau 1815-1905 Berlin)

From the spring of 1845 until March 1847, Menzel lived at 18 Schöneberger Strasse in Berlin and became close friends with his neighbors, the Maercker family. This friendship is attested by a group of watercolors and oils of members of the Maercker family. An oil study in the Nationalgalerie, Berlin shows the family seated around a table conversing (inv. A I 861; C. Keisch and M.U. Riemann-Reyher, Adolph Menzel 1815-1905. Between Romanticism and Impressionism, Washington, D.C., 1996-1997, no. 28, ill.), while a portrait of Mrs. Maercker is in Winterthur, Museum Stiftung Oskar Reinhart (ibid., no. 29, ill). The watercolors of the Maercker children are particularly charming, and of a highly intimate quality. In this drawing the Maercker daughter is shown while holding a book and looking up in a dreamy gaze, while a watercolor, also from 1848, previously with Dr. Moeller & Cie, shows her brother asleep (M. Moeller, op. cit., no. 3, ill.).