Lot 173 Dα

With remains of an illegible signature to the horizontal stone slab in the lower centre.
The motif of a figure forced into vagrancy as a result of unfortunate circumstances was a popular motif in Romantic art and literature. The present image presents a dizzying view of a panoramic landscape, across which we see the, presumably repentant, bandit on the run from the authorities with his sleeping son. A further, early version of this motif by Lessing is kept in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In his publication "Malerwerken des Neunzehnten Jahrhunderts", Friedrich Boetticher mentions two versions of this motif, and the exhibition catalogue "Die Düsseldorfer Malerschule" of 1979 even surmises a third version (exhib. Düsseldorf & Darmstadt, p. 390, no. 156).