Original etching, aquatint, and softground printed in brown-black ink on wove paper.   Hand signed in pencil "Käthe Kollwitz", lower right.   Dated and signed in the plate lower right.   An impression of Klipstein's eleventh and final state.   Printed by von der Becke, Munich, 1937. Plate five of seven from the cycle Bauernkreig (Peasants' War).

Platemark: 19 ½" x 23", sheet: 22" x 27 ¼"
Catalogue reference: Klipstein 66 XI

Between 1902 and 1908, Kollwitz completed her second major print cycle, depicting the German Peasants' War of 1525.   The etchings concern an incident that occurred in 1525, in which a single woman, "Black Anna," inspired the peasants to revolt against the injustices done to them. The peasants had no land of their own, no money to pay the excessive taxes, and no civil rights to protect them.

Kollwitz worked and reworked the images, producing and rejecting multiple versions before arriving at a final sequence.   The Peasants' War may be considered an artistic tour-de-force, combining a mastery of classical technique with a modernistic spontaneity of form.