Death as Juggler (Revolution) (Tod als Jongleur [Revolution]), 1918/1919

Not on View

Medium

woodcut, printed in blue-black, with opaque watercolor on wove paper

Dimensions

sheet: 36.8 × 49.6 cm (14 1/2 × 19 1/2 in.)

Credit Line

Rosenwald Collection

Catalogue Raisonné

Vogt 1960, no. 109

Accession Number

1951.10.387

Artists / Makers

Christian Rohlfs (artist) German, 1849 - 1938

Christian Rohlfs (printer) German, 1849 - 1938

unidentified (publisher)

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Inscription

lower left margine in graphite "5"; lower right in plate, signed in graphite "Chrs Rohlfs"; upper left verso in graphite in circle "4" "500-" upper right verso in graphite "M12075"

Marks and Labels

Verso, stamped in black ink: COMISION NACIONAL DE MUSEOS / Y MONUMENTOS HISTORICOS / JOSE LUIS BUSANICHE / SECRETARIO GENERALE; verso, stamp in black: LJR

Provenance

Claude Schaefer [1913-2010], Montevideo, Uruguay; sold 1950 to Lessing J. Rosenwald; [1] gift 1950/1951 to the National Gallery of Art.

[1] In Recollections of a Collector, 1976, p. 56-57, Rosenwald described being approached by a young man in South America who offered to sell his father’s collection of prints that he had brought with him from Germany. Rosenwald gives the year as 1951, but his appointment books confirm that it was actually 1950 - he left for Buenos Aires on 9 February 1950 and returned on 20 March 1950 (Library of Congress, Rosenwald Papers, Box 75). Rosenwald writes that he bought the entire collection of some 1100 prints and drawings, but as they had already been scheduled to be sent to Europe they came to the United States via Antwerp, arriving in the US in late April 1950. Rosenwald decided to keep about a quarter of the collection, destined for the National Gallery of Art, and donate the remainder to other institutions. The inventory log of Alverthorpe indicates that just over 300 works were accessioned there in May of 1950, inventory numbers 50.260-50.530, acquired from Claude Schaefer (Gallery Archives, National Gallery of Art, RG 45A1, Rosenwald Papers, Box 41).

Associated Names

Rosenwald, Lessing Julius
Schaefer, Claude

Exhibition History

1954: German Expressionist Prints and Drawings, American University, Washington, D.C., 1954.

2024: The Anxious Eye: German Expressionism and Its Legacy, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2024.

Bibliography

1960: Vogt, Paul. Christian Rohlfs: Das graphische Werk. Recklinghausen, 1960: no. 109