Karl Friedrich Schinkel on his Death Bed

Adorned with a laurel wreath, Schinkel’s lifeless head rests on a sketchily drawn pillow. The unwrinkled skin – shadows cast on the area around his closed eyes – gives the subject a relaxed and youthful aura. The accompanying verse echoes this sense of renewal, its words forging a link between the picture of the deceased artist and the promise of fresh beginnings in the afterlife. During the first half of the 19th century, William Hensel – whose marriage to Fanny Mendelssohn Bartholdy doubtless contributed to his fame – was the artist of choice for members of Berlin society and various prominent international figures who wished to be drawn.