The Nibelungen's End - The Death of Kriemhild

Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld’s Nibelungen’s End—the Death of Kriemhild is one of several studies for an extensive fresco cycle for King Ludwig I of Bavaria’s Royal Palace in Munich. Ludwig’s prominent commission had a nationalistic bent and revived medieval German historical literature. The medieval Nibelungen poem centered on a female character, in this case the powerfully vengeful Kriemhild, and was adapted into an opera. Indeed, Richard Wagner started his Ring Cycle in 1848, three years after the date of this dramatic drawing.