Eduard Jakob von Steinle Austrian (1810-1886)

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Image courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

A Pilgrim Looking Down over a Valley Towards the Setting Sun, 1862 Pencil on thin off-white card 23.1 x 20.4 cm Bequeathed by Dr. Grete Ring, 1954 WA 1954.70.167

The Nazarene movement began in 1808 when a group of students at the Viennese Royal Academy, unhappy with their education, left school to begin a group they called the Brotherhood of St. Luke, or the Lukasbund, named for the patron saint of painting.  The group began two years before Edward Jakob von Steinle was even born.  The role of religion and the discovery of one’s true self were paramount to the ideals of the Nazarene movement.  They believed that modern painting reflected the principles of the academy and that academic training inhibited the development of an artist’s true feelings and natural style because it focused on the concept of imitation and not self-expression.  The Nazarenes were greatly interested in the work of Raphael and other Italian Renaissance painters because they exemplified simplicity and truth.  It was perhaps this interest in the Italian Renaissance which led the members of the Lukasbund to Rome, where they adopted a monastic lifestyle while living in St. Isidoro, a semi-abandoned monastery.  The adoption of this ascetic way of life was an act that fused art and religion, something the Nazarenes strove for in their lives.[i]  Though many of the founding members were no longer in Rome by the time Steinle joined the group in 1828, Johann Friedrich Overbeck and Philippe Veit were strong influences in his work.  Steinle, along with many of the Nazarenes, received many commissions to paint cathedral frescoes.  Though his work in churches throughout Europe is prolific, it is not considered the pinnacle of his œuvre.  He is best known for oil paintings executed in the early 1840s based on fairy tale subjects, and his 1864 painting of Lorely, a Rhine maiden whose siren song seduces sailors to their doom.

A Pilgrim Looking Down over a Valley Towards the Setting Sun has no fixed date, but a catalog raisonné of 1897, published by a relative of Steinle, mentions a work entitled A Pilgrim and dates it to 1862.  Steinle made a second, less-finished version of this drawing which is now in the Städelsches Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt.  The Frankfurt version of the drawing has an inscription which indicates that a poem by Princess von Windischgrätz entitled Evening served as the inspiration for this drawing.  It is possible that Steinle had hoped to have the drawing published as an illustration for the poem.  Indeed, the linear style of the Ashmolean drawing would have rendered it suitable for graphic reproduction, though Evening never made it to print.[ii]  

Steinle’s pilgrim resembles depictions of Saint James the Great, a saint who made a pilgrimage to Compostela, Spain, to preach the gospel.  Saint James is often depicted with scallop shells on his clothing and on his hat, similarly to this pilgrim.  The scallop shells eventually came to represent pilgrimage in general, but the scallop shells in tandem with the walking staff with a water gourd attached to the top, were often the attributes of Saint James the Great.  Though Steinle’s pilgrim is not identified as Saint James, he has depicted this man with the saint’s attributes, making him easily identifiable to the viewer as a pilgrim.  He is pilgrimage personified; this life of solitude and religious devotion mirrored the lives and goals of the members of the Nazarene movement.