For Adolf Rosenberg (author of Die Berliner Malerschule 1819-1879. Studien und Kritiken, Berlin, 1879), Ernst Karl Eugen Körner is one of the foremost exponents of realist Orientalist landscape made in the nineteenth century in Germany. His work is also defined by a strong romantic and poetic vision.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, and largely as a consequence of the Napoleonic wars, artists’ attention centred on what was known as “the Orient”, and travel books, illustrations and literature provided artists with abundant stimuli for their explorations of Orientalist themes. The Schlegel brothers, Lessing, Herder, Schiller, Hegel and Goethe were all interested in and wrote about Oriental subjects.

At the same time, the German state, following in the footsteps of Champollion, the French Egyptologist, funded an archaeological expedition in 1842 led by Richard Lepsius, which contributed to a deeper insight into Oriental culture and architecture. The knowledge gleaned during this expedition would prove critical in the shift to Orientalism by many German painters.

Körner’s tour to Egypt in 1873 gave him a first-hand source of information and inspiration, triggering an enduring fascination for the Orient. The river Nile and the ruins of Beni Hassan are recurrent subjects in his work. His oil paintings and watercolours faithfully describe Oriental places and customs—those foreign artistic and architectural creations that provoked so much interest in the Western world.

This work speaks to a transcendental place on the way towards the great beyond, inviting us to a quasi metaphysical experience. It is a space for true spiritual enlightenment, where the artist’s subjective feeling is combined with a real-life depiction of the landscape.

The foreground is dominated by the ruins of the Beni Hassan tombs, while in the middle ground the Nile meanders into the distance, imbuing the composition with a sense of infinitude. In the background, it vanishes into the horizon and the setting sun whose light bathes the whole painting and instils it with a highly dramatic theatrical effect. The combination of nature depicted in its purest state with the romantic ruins produces a harmonious ensemble charged with a feeling of mysticism. Similarly, the free-flowing brushwork confers the work with an air of modernism that places it on the threshold of the avant-gardes.