Art Institute of Chicago

Genoveva’s Murderers Take Pity

Joseph Ritter von Führich

Date

c. 1830

Medium

Pen and black ink, over traces of graphite, on ivory wove paper, partially laid down on ivory wove paper

Culture

Bohemia

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

Joseph Ritter von Führich was a fresco painter and draughtsman active in Rome with the Nazarene Brotherhood, who preferred a style of drawing that employed expressive outline and clarity of detail reminiscent of Albrecht Dürer and Raphael. Führich designed illustrations for several religious themed books, including an edition of Ludwig Tieck’s play The Life and Death of Saint Genoveva (1799/1800), which was based on a medieval legend of innocence betrayed. In the play, Genoveva is wrongly accused of being unfaithful by her husband, a character likely based on the 13th-century Duke Ludwig II of Bavaria. Robert Schumann’s only opera was based on Tieck’s play and was first performed in Leipzig in 1850.

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