# The Nibelungen's End - The Death of Kriemhild

- By: Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (German, 1794-1874)
- Date: 1845
- Medium: 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
- Classification: Drawing and Watercolor
- Dimensions: Primary support: 50.4 × 63.8 cm (19 7/8 × 25 1/8 in.); Secondary support: 62 × 68.5 cm (24 7/16 × 27 in.)
- Culture: Germany
- Credit line: Gift of Dorothy Braude Edinburg to the Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection
- Museum: [Art Institute of Chicago](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/149580)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/51662024-94b8-e267-c9db-09cc96041899/full/!1920,1080/0/default.jpg
- Who can see it: Teens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

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.

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0