Two Men before a Waterfall at Sunset  1823

Set in a wild landscape evoking his native Norway and depicting Dahl alongside fellow painter Caspar David Friedrich, this picture pays homage to Friedrich’s 1819 masterpiece Two Men Contemplating the Moon, which Dahl received as a gift from the artist (now Gemäldegalerie, Dresden). A later variant of Friedrich’s composition is in the Metropolitan (2000.51); in that work, ...