Файл:Die Ehebrecherin vor Christus (Christ and the Woman taken in adultery) (BM 1854,1020.1443).jpg

Height: 380 millimetres

Width: 496 millimetres

Text from Antony Griffiths and Frances Carey, 'German Printmaking in the Age of Goethe' BM 1994, no. 126 : In 1810 Aretin was transferred to Nuremberg, and Senefelder's Munich business was sold to the partnership of the stationer and publisher J. G. Zeller (see 1882,0114.227; 1882,0114.229-230; 1882,0114.232-233) and the painter Johann Christian Mannlich (1741-1822). Their first project was a series of reproductions of 432 old master and modern drawings in Munich entitled 'Les Oeuvres Lithographiques', which came out in seventy-two parts, each of six lithographs, between 1810 and 1816. One of the artists involved was Quaglio (1863,0214.1699), but Strixner was the main employee. A French visitor to Mannlich in 1811 reported that "he had the idea of making known to rest of Europe so far as he could the merits of the German school . . . the next day he took me to the atelier of his pupils, and praised the talent of Strixner, in whom he a particular pride" (quoted from M.Twyman, 'Lithography 1800-1850', London 1970, p.22, n.1). Mannlich held the post of director of the royal collection in Munich, and it was in this role that he began a second series of lithographed reproductions after the paintings in his care. The first part appeared in 1816; the twenty-fourth part in 1821, and the final fiftieth part appeared at some later time that has not yet been determined (a complete set is in the British Museum, 1854,1020.1356 to 1556). The lithographs were drawn, with some assistance, by Strixner and his partner Ferdinand Piloty, and they also saw to the publication and distribution of the series until 1820 when Strixner left for Stuttgart (see 1860,0114.150). The series went far beyond German painters: all the major schools were included in order to give a survey of the entire range of the painting collection in Munich. The painting by Lucas Cranach reproduced in this print was transferred from the Alte Pinakothek to Kronach in 1922. At this early stage lithography had not been developed far enough to reproduce colours, and so the artists contented themselves with the addition of one or two tint-stones, from which highlights had been scraped out to reveal the white of the paper. But to a public educated on the traditional type of 'gallery' publication, where all the paintings were reproduced in engraving, even this touch of colour would have been a surprise, and would have associated these prints rather with the traditional chiaroscuro woodcut.

The Department of Prints and Drawings keeps a bound version of the series in album 245.a.30.

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