Focus on this artwork and explore the Background.
At the suggestion of the naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, King Frederick William III of Prussia purchased the Foulchiron Palm Collection. The Palm House was designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel and completed in 1834. It was constructed on Pfaueninsel, an island near Potsdam that was a popular retreat for royals. Frederick William commissioned Blechen, who was generally regarded as a landscape painter and had even been recently appointed as the Professor of Landscape Painting at the Akademie der Künste, to create two or three paintings of the Palm House at the cost of one thousand Taler.
Potsdam Akademie der Künste Taler Karl Friedrich Schinkel Frederick William III of Prussia Pfaueninsel Alexander von Humboldt