About the Work
The sketchbook, dated 1837, contains precisely executed sketches made with a soft pencil: studies of trees, depictions of farm animals and architectural motifs, especially of half-timbered houses. Of interest in this context is the comparison with a sketchbook by the older brother Friedrich Metz (Inv. SG 2752), also dated 1837 and found in the Städel Museum. Many of the architectural and ornamental studies in this sketchbook, drawn with similar concentration and meticulousness, are based on the same models; they are only set differently on the page or show different details. See e.g. the half-timbered façade, here page 3 recto, there page 1 recto, or the consoles, which were recorded here on page 4 recto as individual details, there on pages 2 and 3 recto integrated into a depiction of the whole façade. The drawings were probably made according to printed models: according to the notations in Friedrich Metz’s sketchbook, the studies of half-timbered houses could at least partly be copies after textbooks by the architect and art historian Karl Bötticher (1806‒1889), whose “Holzarchitektur des Mittelalters” (Wooden Architecture of the Middle Ages) was published in instalments and illustrated with lithographs since 1835. The depiction of the bear biter (sheet 27 recto), in turn, follows a copper engraving by Johann Elias Ridinger.
For a full sketchbook description, please see “Research”.
