MORITZ VON SCHWIND
(Vienna 1804 – 1871 Munich) 

Studies of a Seated Figure for “The Contest of the Minnesingers at the Wartburg”

Signed, lower right: M. v. Schwind. 

Pen and ink on paper
8 ⅛ x 8 inches (20.6 x 20.3 cm)

Provenance:  

Wilhelm Suida; thence by descent to:
Robert L. and Bertina Suida Manning, New York, until 1996
Private Collection, USA.

Moritz von Schwind had a long and varied career. He first trained at the Akademie der Bildende Künste in Vienna in the early 1820s, and by the 1840s held positions as professor of painting at the Städelsche Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt am Main and later at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich. Schwind was the painter and illustrator par excellence of medieval German history and legend. The present drawing is a study for a figure seated on the steps at left in the artist’s grand painting The Contest of the Minnesingers at the Wartburg (Der Sängerkrieg auf der Wartburg) of 1844–1846 in the Städel Museum, Frankfurt (Fig. 1). The perhaps legendary event depicted, which took place at Wartburg Castle in 1207, became an important German cultural symbol in the 19th century. Schwind would go on to paint a large fresco depicting the event at the Wartburg itself.