 The magical moonlit seascape Mother and Child by the Sea by the Norwegian artist, Johan Christian Dahl (1788–1857), is the centrepiece of this major exhibition.
Dahl was one of the nineteenth century’s foremost landscapists and a friend and contemporary of the great German Romantic, Caspar David Friedrich (1777–1840), with whom he shared a house in Dresden for many years. Celebrating the recent acquisition of the painting—one of only two in public collections in England—this exhibition locates it in relation to Dahl’s other pictures and those of his contemporaries. It also explores the fascination with moonlight that came to preoccupy Romantic artists in Europe during the period 1770–1860, including Friedrich, Carl Gustav Carus, Wright of Derby, John Russell, Turner, Claude-Joseph Vernet and Daumier, all of whom are represented here.
The exhibition features major loans from public and private collections in Britain and abroad, including Tate Britain, Bergen Art Museum, the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo, and the Galerie Neue Meister, Dresden. It is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue and an extensive programme of lectures and events.
 
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