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Emil Orlik: Richter - Judges

Richter - Judges
lithograph, 1921
Sheet Size: 21.5 x 30.5 cm - (8½ x 12 inches)
signed in pencil

on thin wove paper. In good condition
one of the series of 14 lithographs Orlik made from his sketches in the court-room during the trial of the actors in the production of the play by the Austrian dramatist Arthur Schnitzler Der Reigen produced in Berlin by Max Reinhardt.

Der Reigen is among Schnitzler's best-known works. It is a skillfully constructed play in ten dialogues, in which the characters are seen after coitus as well as before. Beginning with the seduction of a soldier by a whore, each subsequent dialogue is related to its predecessor to form a cycle. The play caused one of the greatest scandals in the history of the German theatre. It provoked anti-semitic riots in Berlin. A six-day obscenity trial resulted in an acquittal but the author banned any performances of the play in Europe until after his death. The light-hearted counterpointing of the love-and-death theme inspired Max Ophuls's film La Ronde (1950).