Love and death

Weber, Wagner and Max Klinger

David Chalcraft

pp. 196-213

in: Sam Whimster (ed), Max Weber and the culture of anarchy, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1999

Abstract

When Weber's mother came to stay she was obviously shocked by the display of nudity so evident and asked them "at least remove the Klingers from their walls". This became a matter of some comment within the family and when Helene's sister Ida Baumgarten visited, she wrote to her daughter that the Klingers "decorate all the rooms". And when a young Else von Richthofen visited the house the impact of the Klingers was sufficiently strong for her to comment on them some decades later to Eduard Baumgarten, who recorded: "On the wall opposite Max Weber's desk hung an original etching by Max Klinger. On the way home she wondered what kind of person would have hung this picture on the wall opposite him."⁴

Cited authors

Baumgarten Eduard

Weber Max

Wagner Richard

Klinger Max