Chalk cliffs, Mön, ca. 1840.

A pupil of Siegfried Bendixen in Hamburg, Carl began to expose his works in Hamburg, Berlin and Munich in 1837. Starting in 1839, he studied at the Academies of Munich and Dusseldorf, before settling in Hamburg in 1841. In 1843, he left for Italy where he met with considerable success, in particular with his Sicilian landscapes. He died there at the age of thirty. His works can be seen today in the Hanover Museum and the Kunsthalle Hamburg.

This realist painting depicts the chalk cliffs of the island of Mön, located in the south of Zealand (east of Denmark). They are 7 kilometres long and, at a certain point, rise to 128 metres above sea level. Many painters and poets were inspired by the whiteness of these cliffs, similar to the colour of glaciers.