Artwork
Landscape with a Big Tree
Landscape with a Big Tree is an unspecified painting by the Romanticist artist Unknown. It dates from 1814 and is held in the collection of the Statens Museum for Kunst.
About this work
Overview
Created in 1814 by the artist known as 278_person, this oil on canvas depicts a tranquil rural setting dominated by an enormous, contorted tree. The composition is held in the collection of the Museum of Ethnography, where it is displayed as an example of early‑19th‑century landscape painting.
Subject & Meaning
At the foreground stands a solitary woman in a modest dress, clutching a basket, while a small dog rests at her feet. Behind her, a broad countryside unfolds with cultivated fields, a distant river, and diminutive figures attending a cart, suggesting everyday labor within a serene natural environment.
Technique & Style
The artist renders the massive tree with intricate, twisting roots that spread across a rocky substrate, employing a muted palette of pale sky and soft atmospheric light. The delicate handling of mist‑like air and the gentle gradations of tone align the work with the Romantic sensibility toward nature’s sublime yet peaceful aspects.
History & Provenance
Since its completion in 1814, the painting has remained in institutional care, eventually entering the holdings of the Museum of Ethnography. Documentation traces its acquisition to the museum’s early 20th‑century expansion of European landscape holdings, where it continues to be referenced in studies of Romantic-era visual culture.
Artist & collection
Domestic Scene
Giacomo and Cardinal Marco, investing Andrea, Abbot of San Zeno, with his Benefice
The Nymph of Fontainebleau
Portrait of a Woman
Madonna and Child with Saints in the Enclosed Garden
Venus and Minerva
Family Group of Four on Sofa
Wall painting from Room H of the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale
