DISCOVERART

Max Klinger

The Chronicler (recto and verso)

April 5, 1888 (recto); April 6, 1888 (verso)
Graphite, heightened with white goauche (recto and verso), on tan wove paper
43.2 × 30 cm (17 × 11.8 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

Drawings by the Symbolist artist Max Klinger are very rare. This intimate drawing was completed over April 5-6, 1888, while the artist was staying in Rome on the Via Claudia near the Colisseum. This sensitive figure drawing helped to prepare Klinger's most important painting of those years, The Crucifixion, 1888/1891. In an almost autobiographical reflection, it depicts the scribe who unemotionally documents the world's greatest tragedy that rages around him.

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