Dear Listmembers,

I seek a published source, in German, for the anecdote below. Please note that
I'm aware that the story may be apocryphal, and that while I would welcome any
relevant information, the matter of the story's status as historical truth or
fiction is ultimately not my concern. Ideally, I'd like to have a published
source (historical, literary, journalistic -- any form will do) from the period
1890-1920, but I would be grateful for any information on German sources of any
period. (The leads I've pursued thus far are so many and varied that it would
be impossible to list them here. All suggestions are welcome!)

Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin is said to have proposed hanging Raphael's
masterpiece the „Sistine Madonna" on the barricades during the Dresden uprising
of May 1849. Bakunin's objective was to deter the Prussian troops from firing
on
the revolutionaries by placing the prized painting in the line of fire. ("The
story," writes E. H. Carr, "that Bakunin proposed to hang the Sistine Madonna
on the barricades, on the ground that the Prussians were 'too cultured to fire
on Raphael,' belongs to the world of picturesque legend.")

I seek a German source for any version of that "picturesque legend."

My aim is to establish the currency of the story among artists in Germany
around
1920, the moment of the so-called „Kunstlump-Debatte" carried out among the
Berlin Dadaists George Grosz and John Heartfield, the Expressionist painter and
playwright Oskar Kokoschka (at the time Professor at the Kunstakademie in
Dresden), and the German Communist Party critic, Gertrud Alexander. Damage done
to masterpieces in Dresden's Zwinger galleries during the uprising of March
1920
was a focal point of the heated exchanges on art and politics among those
several important figures of early Weimar culture.

Many thanks in advance for any assistance subscribers to the list may be able
to
provide. (To any subscribers who may have read this query previously on
H-German
and GSList, my apologies for the repetition -- I'm still looking for the
perfect
source.)

Dr. Brigid Doherty
Assistant Professor of the History of Art and Humanities
Department of the History of Art
The Johns Hopkins University
268 Mergenthaler Hall
3400 Nosrth Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21218
(410) 516-5528 voice mail
(410) 516-5188 fax
bdohertyjhu.edu