Monk Meditating near a Ruin by Moonlight

Frederik Marinus Kruseman (signed by artist), 1862

In the right foreground of this nocturnal scene a monk meditates near an overgrown ruin. This is the abbey in Villers-la-Ville near Brussels, the city where the painter lived for a while. The subject and the frame embellished with sheaves of wheat were inspired by the German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich’s famous Tetschen Altarpiece depicting a cross atop a mountain.