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Schlachtfeld (Battlefield) - from Bauernkrieg (The Peasants' Revolt) by Kathe Kollwitz

Schlachtfeld (Battlefield) - from Bauernkrieg (The Peasants Revolt) by Kathe Kollwitz

Schlachtfeld (Battlefield) - from Bauernkrieg (The Peasants' Revolt)

Kathe Kollwitz

Title

Schlachtfeld (Battlefield) - from Bauernkrieg (The Peasants' Revolt)

 
Artist

Kathe Kollwitz

  1867 - 1945 (biography)
Year
1907 , printed later (ca 1963-72)) 
Technique
etching, drypoint, aquatint, sandpaper, and softground etching in green-black ink 
Image Size
16 1/8 x 21" platemark 
Signature
unsigned as usual for this edition; name engraved in plate, lower right 
Edition Size
unnumbered, as usual (circa 200 in this state) 
Annotations
engraved in plate, lower right: "1921 / Originalradierung von Kathe Kollwitz"; A. von der Becke blindstamp in lower right 
Reference
Klipstein 96; Knesebeck 100 
Paper
heavy cream copperplate 
State
XVb 
Publisher
A. von der Becke, Munich, Germany (blindstamp in lower right corner reads "A.V.D. Becke/Muenchen 22") 
Inventory ID
23411 
Price
SOLD
Description

The sixth plate from Kollwitz' seven-image cycle, "Bauernkrieg" (The Peasants' Revolt, or The Peasant's War), based on the the revolt of 1522 - '25 during Germany's Protestant Reformation. In this image, Kollwitz' portrays "Black Anna," a leader of the historic revolt and a repeating character in the series, searching for the body of her young son on a battlefield strewn with the shadowed shapes of the dead. Clutching a lantern in her left hand, she reaches out with her right to touch the face of a child, hoping he might be her own so as to end her desperate pilgrimage.

The strength of the image lay in Kollwitz' rendering of the mother's blunt, sculptural hand - highly detailed even in the small space it occupies on the plate - displaying a wrenching, cautious gentleness. A powerful image that speaks volumes in its quietude.

The works in the series are: 1. Die Pflüger / The Plowing; 2. Vergewaltigt / Raped; 3. Beim Dengeln / Sharpening the Scythe; 4. Bewaffnung in einem Gewölbe / Armng in a Vault; 5. Lorsbruch / Outbreak; 6. Schlachtfeld / After the Battle; and 7. Die Gefangenen / The Prisoners.