Siegfried and the Rhine Maidens
Albert Pinkham Ryder1888/1891
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Washington, DC, United States
By his own account, Ryder was so enthralled by a five-hour performance of Wagner's Götterdämmerung that he rushed home and began painting this rendition of the opera's narrative, working without sleep or food for forty-eight hours. Galloping down a moonlit path, the legendary Norse hero Siegfried encounters a group of Rhine Maidens who beckon seductively from the phosphorescent river. They warn the hero that the magical ring he won by slaying a dragon was forged from stolen gold and bears a deadly curse. Siegfried defiantly proclaims he would rather die than give up his prize. By the opera's dramatic climax, the nymphs' apocalyptic prophecy is fulfilled: Siegfried is killed; overcome by grief, the heroine Brünnhilde sacrifices herself on her lover's funeral pyre, the other gods and heroes of Valhalla are consumed by the spreading conflagration, and the Ring of the Nibelung, now purified by the flames, is returned to the river from whence it came.
Wagner's orchestration engulfed listeners with an overwhelming torrent of sound, and Ryder's composition offers a visual counterpart to this rhapsodic aesthetic experience. Although Ryder's technical naiveté and his unorthodox methods have caused the surfaces of his once-luminous paintings to crack and darken over time, the expressive power and emotional intensity of his art endures.
More information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication _American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part II,_ pages 97-102, which is available as a free PDF <u>https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/American%20Paintings%20of%20the%20Nineteenth%20Century%20Part%20II.pdf</u>
- Title: Siegfried and the Rhine Maidens
- Creator: Albert Pinkham Ryder
- Date Created: 1888/1891
- Physical Dimensions: overall: 50.5 x 52 cm (19 7/8 x 20 1/2 in.) framed: 75.3 x 77.2 x 6.4 cm (29 5/8 x 30 3/8 x 2 1/2 in.)
- Provenance: Richard Haines Halsted [d. 1925], New York, by 1891.[1] Sir William Cornelius Van Horne [1843-1915], Montreal, Canada, by 1895;[2] his estate; (his estate sale, Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 24 January 1946, no. 18);[3] purchased by NGA. [1] Halsted was a New York stockbroker and member of the New York Athletic Club's Art Committee who collected Oriental and mostly European art; he also owned Ryder's _Jonah_ (middle 1880s to 1890 or later, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.). [2] Van Horne was a Canadian railroad magnate, amateur artist, and art collector who also owned Ryder's _Constance_ (middle 1880s to middle 1890s or later, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston); for biographical information on him see Walter Vaughan, _The Life and Work of Sir William Van Horne_, New York, 1920. For a summary of his relationship with Ryder see Elizabeth Broun, _Albert Pinkham Ryder_, Exh. cat., National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C., 1989: 70, 74. [3] _Siegfried_ is listed in the sale catalogue, _Twenty Important Modern Paintings From the Collection of the Late Sir William Van Horne, K.C.M.G., Montreal_ (New York, Parke-Bernet Galleries, 24 January 1946), cat. no. 18, 30. These paintings were sold on the instructions of Margaret Van Horne, the wife of Sir William Van Horne's grandson (also named Wiliam). She wrote to James Lane at the National Gallery of Art (letter of 11 December 1947, in NGA curatorial files) the following explanation of the disposition of the Van Horne collection: "When Sir William died in 1915, the Art Collection was left to his widow, his son and his daughter.... The Collection was not divided until February 1945. Until then, the entire Collection was in 'The Estate of the late Sir William Van Horne'.... 'Siegfried and the Rhine Maidens' fell into my share at the time of the division." Margaret Van Horne must have inherited her husband's share, who in turn had inherited it from his father, Sir William's son. When the painting was reproduced or lent after Sir William's death it was usually credited to the collection of his widow, Lady Van Horne.
- Rights: CC0
- Medium: oil on canvas
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