Käthe Kollwitz
Ploughman with standing woman in the foreground
Rejected third version of plate 1 from the Peasants’ War cycle
1906?
Etching, needlepoint and vernis mou with transfer print on copperplate paper, reworked with pencil, opaque white and brown ink
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett
This early version of the first sheet in the etching series “Peasants’ War,” entitled “The Ploughmen,” once again highlights the theatrical nature of Käthe Kollwitz’s pictorial concepts. As on a stage, the scene is divided into a foreground and a distant background. In the theater, this background would be represented as a painted backdrop. The figures depicted present us with a story from the past for which we have no pictorial documents.