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Genoveva

1872
Not on view
Richter's life-long interest in medieval legend is evident in this delicately detailed watercolor that depicts Genoveva of Brabant, wife of the 13th century count palatine, Siegfried of Treves (now Trier in the German Rhineland). While her husband was away at war, she was falsely accused of adultery and condemned to death. Spared by the executioner, she fled to the forest of Ardennes in France, and lived with her son in a cave for six years, fed by a female deer. Based on a large etching Richter made some thirty years earlier, in 1848, this image uses delicately controlled color to suggest a forest idyll in which animals nurture and protect two wronged innocents.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Genoveva
  • Artist: Adrian Ludwig Richter (German, Dresden 1803–1884 Dresden)
  • Date: 1872
  • Medium: Watercolor on paper
  • Dimensions: 12 1/4 x 7 1/4 in. (31.1 x 18.4 cm)
  • Classification: Drawings
  • Credit Line: Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1939
  • Object Number: 39.81.1
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints
More Artwork
Alte und neue Kinderlieder, Fabeln, Sprüche und Räthsel, Adrian Ludwig Richter  German, Etchings
Multiple artists/makers
1849
Self-Portrait, turned slightly to the left, Käthe Kollwitz  German, Pen and different shades of gray-black ink
Käthe Kollwitz
ca. 1893
Landscape with Stars, Henri-Edmond Cross (Henri-Edmond Delacroix)  French, Watercolor on white wove paper
Henri-Edmond Cross (Henri-Edmond Delacroix)
ca. 1905–1908
Richter's Werke  (binder's title), Adrian Ludwig Richter  German, Steel engravings, wood engravings, photoprints
Multiple artists/makers
1879
Armor, Steel, leather, German, possibly Lower Saxony
German, possibly Lower Saxony
ca. 1540–50 and later

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