Beim Dengeln (While Sharpening the Scythe), Plate 3 of 7, from the series Bauernkrieg (Peasants' War)
Käthe Kollwitz, German, 1867 - 1945
1905; published after 1945
Etching on wove paper
Plate: 11 1/2 × 11 3/4 in. (29.2 × 29.8 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Museum Purchase
PR.958.195
Publisher
A. von der Becke, Berlin, Germany
Geography
Place Made: Germany, Europe
Period
20th century
Object Name
Research Area
On view
Inscriptions
Inscribed, in plate, lower right: 1921; embossed, lower right: AVD BECKE/KUNSTVERLAG/BERLIN-HALENSEE
Label
Filling nearly the entirety of the print, a woman holds a scythe, a farm tool used for cutting grains, and rubs at its blade. Standing in deep shadows, the woman is selectively highlighted, dramatizing the moment. Although made at the beginning of the twentieth century, this etching belongs to a series Kollwitz made depicting the sixteenthcentury German Peasants’ War, during which people who worked the land rose up against the aristocracy, motivated by social inequality, religious differences, and economic hardship. This woman prepares for battle, her scythe a weapon. Ultimately unsuccessful, the revolt ended with the violent repression of the farmers. Whereas written documents from the period emphasize the elites’ perspective, Kollwitz’s series records moments from the viewpoint of the peasants.
From the 2023 exhibition Recording War: Images of Violence 1500 – 1900, curated by Elizabeth Rice Mattison, Andrew W. Mellon Associate Curator of Academic Programming
Course History
GERM 10, Germany and the East, Yuliya Komska, Winter 2013
SART 27, SART 28, Printmaking I: Intaglio, Printmaking II, Louise Hamlin, Winter 2013
GERM 3.01, Introdoctory German (cont.), Heidi Denzel, Fall 2022
Exhibition History
Aspects of Human Experience: Works from the Permanent Collection, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, Art History 2, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, December 12, 1998-March 14, 1999.
Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 17, 2000-January 14, 2001.
Recording War: Images of Violence, 1500-1900, Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, August 23-December 9, 2023.
The Voice of the Print, Visual Studies Department Installation, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, December 1, 1989-January 1, 1990.
Catalogue Raisonne
A. Klipstein, Kathe Kollwitz: Verzeichnis des Graphischen Werkes, Bern, 1955, no. 90.
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