Der Tod als Erwürger (Death as a Strangler)
1851
Medium
wood engraving [first edition]
Classification
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Rosenwald Collection
Accession Number
1951.10.113
Art Historical Context
Alfred Rethel's *Der Tod als Erwür (Death as a Str)*, a striking wood engraving from 1851, captures the grim inevitability of mortality in a first-edition print now housed in the National Gallery Art's Rosenwald Collection Created by the German artist during a period of personal and societal turmoil, this work belongs to Rethel's poignant series *Auch ein Todanz (Another Dance of Death)*, which reimagines the medieval motif of Death's dance through a 19th-century lens. Bedridden with typhus that year—a disease mirroring the cholera epidemics ravaging Europe—Rethel designed these engravings fr...
About the Artist
Alfred Rethel · 1816–1859
Comment on works: history