A narrow, horizontal intaglio print from 1893 depicts a scene from Émile Zola’s novel in which two men fight over a woman in an empty tavern.
“There was [während der Studienzeit der Künstlerin in München] an association [during the artist’s student days in Munich] that brought together some girls from our class with Otto Greiner, Alexander Oppler, Gottlieb Elster. A theme was set for these evenings. So I reflect on the theme of ‘fight’. I chose the scene from Germinal, where in a smoky pub a fight takes place between two men for the young Kathrin. This composition was appreciated. For the first time I felt that my path was validated, great possibilities opened to my imagination, and the night was restless with an expectation of happiness. […] For this purpose I needed studies. At that time, Königsberg had a number of sailors’ taverns in the old areas of the Pregel, which were incredibly dangerous if visited in the evening. […] The pub ‘Schiffchen’ (Little Boat) with its double exits was most interesting to me. Wild riots could be heard inside, stabbings were on the daily order.”
Käthe Kollwitz, Looking Back on Earlier Times, 1941. Diaries, pp. 738ff.
“In the first period of my being here, I made the great plan to paint a picture, the quarrel scene from the Germinal, which I had made in Munich as a charcoal sketch. And then I went bravely about it. But I got stuck. I can’t paint the picture until spring, I can’t continue it in Berlin, so I’m doing all the preliminary studies […] and only etching the whole thing when I have more practice in that technique. I am now almost finished with these preliminary works. I have found a splendid location where the scene can take place. It is a real murder pit, where sailors socialize, a wild dance hall. It is a spectacle in the evenings. I have made friends with the landlord and in the morning, when the hall is empty, I draw there, trembling and apprehensive.”
The artist in a letter of 26.2.1891 to the Munich student friend Paul Hey. Briefe, p. 20f.
