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Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld

The Nibelungen's End - The Death of Kriemhild

1845
Graphite and brush and brown washes on tan laid paper, with added strip of tan wove paper at top (restoration), laid down on brown wove paper
50.4 × 63.8 cm (19.8 × 25.1 in)

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In the collection of Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago · as of July 2026

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FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

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.

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