Lot 322 Dα

In 1878, a Moroccan legation came to Berlin for the first time. A photograph of this event has survived, showing the 13 members of the delegation in their various traditional costumes. Some of these Moroccans visited Menzel's studio on 2 June 1878 and were depicted by him as portrait and model studies in pencil. The present drawing and two further sheets in the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett (N 2560 and N 1014), which were created on the same day, are the surviving result of this visit. Not far from the studio, an attack on Kaiser Wilhelm I also took place that day. Menzel noted the news of the day on the present sheet and added a sketchy portrait of the Kaiser at the top right.
The previously unknown drawing has been presented to the Kupferstichkabinett, and we would like to thank the museum's art historians for their support in cataloguing it.