The Woman with the Spider's Web (or The Woman with the Spider's Web between Bare Trunks, German: Die Frau mit dem Spinnennetz zwischen kahlen Bäumen) is a small c. 1803 print by the German Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich, made into a woodcut the same year by his brother Christian Friedrich, a carpenter and furniture maker.
She rests one arm on the stump of a branch as she looks out mournfully and enigmatically to the far distance, perhaps looking towards an uncertain future, or waiting for the return of a long-lost lover.
The Woman with the Spider's Web was influenced by Albrecht Dürer's engraving Melencolia I (1514) and by characters from the romantic writings of Ludwig Tieck.
[3] Her elbow rests on a broken tree branch, while, according to art historian Albert Boime, "all around her weeds have sprung up (including the sickening thistles, traditional symbols of melancholy)".
[9] German Romanticism was in part founded on nationalism and historical pride, which perhaps explains why Friedrich reached back to Dürer's 16th century engraving.