Boy Sleeping on a Grave



Boy Sleeping on a Grave (German: Knabe auf einem Grab schlafend ) is a c. 1803 print designed by the German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich, and printed on paper as a woodcut, the block cut by his brother Christian Friedrich, who was a carpenter and furniture maker.

An example in the National Gallery of Canada measures just 7.7 x, and an example in the Metropolitan Museum of Art measures 7.8 x. It is one of four woodcuts designed by Friedrich and cut by his brother around 1803. The wood blocks for three of the prints - Boy sleeping on a grave, Woman with the Spider's Web and Woman with a Raven at an Abyss - are held by the Hamburger Kunsthalle. It was suggested by the German art historian Helmut Börsch-Supan that they were made as illustrations for a book - perhaps a volume of Friedrich's poetry. The three prints were exhibited in Dresden in March 1804. These three illustrations are based on drawings by Friedrich in a sketchbook that he used from September 1800 to March 1802, now known as the Mannheim Sketchbook. Although the pages are now separated, eleven are held by the Kunsthalle Mannheim, but a pen and ink drawing of a sleeping boy (German: Schlafender Knabe) dated to 1802 is held by the Kunsthalle Bremen.

The fourth woodcut is a profile self-portrait of Friedrich, perhaps intended as a frontispiece for the same volume of poetry.