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Like the ruins at Bösig, the small capital city of Klösterle an der Eger – today called Klášterec nad Ohři, in the Bohemian part of the Ore Mountains (Erzgebirge) – was a destination that Richard Müller traveled to repeatedly over the years. In 1935, the baroque sandstone sculpture of a triton in the extensive English nature park of the castle there, which is still well-preserved, inspired him to create the present drawing. With meticulous care, Müller devoted himself to detailing the rough surface of the stone, in full contrast to the grass and shrubbery that served merely as a backdrop for the central figure. He understood how to lend this sculpture a surprisingly lively plasticity, despite the realistic appearance of its material structure. This erstwhile fountain sculpture, a mythological hybrid of man and fish with several long, scaly tails, winds across the drawing, seemingly desperate to get away from its current location and into its aquatic element. Its open mouth is frozen in a scream, and its expression is anxiously distorted.
The Klösterle castle was built in the 16th century by the aristocratic Saxon Vitzthum family. It was awarded to the Thun and Hohenstein family during the Thirty Years‘ War in 1621, serving as the residence of the family until 1945. In the 17th century, the complex was extensively rebuilt, expanded, and furnished with the assistance of Italian master builders. Instead of a Baroque garden, the compound is today surrounded by a spacious English park, which still features several allegorical stone figures by the sculptor Johann Brokoff (1652-1718).