Pond before a town

The skilled use of darker ink for the foreground provides the image with an immediately convincing sense of space, within which the man looking at the palace beyond the pond causes viewers to instinctively experience themselves as standing upon the near shore. A. Schmitt identified the palace opposite the shore as Neuburg an der Donau. Although Schmitt was unable to document any precise adherence to details, the unusual undertaking of an image from life – as compared to the fantasy landscapes of the etchings – may explain the fundamentally distinct manner of composition.