Ruht im Frieden seiner Hände. 1935/36.
Relief-plastic Bronze with dark brown patina.
Timm 45. Lower margin inscribed "Kollwitz" all caps and with foundry mark "H. Noack Berlin". 35 x 31,5 x 7 cm (13,7 x 12,4 x 2,7 in).
Cast posthumously after 1962.

EXHIBITION: Käthe Kollwitz. Das plastische Werk. Galerie Alex Vömel, Düsseldorf 22 April - 31 May, 1955, cat. no. 2 (with illu.).
Käthe Kollwitz, Zeichnungen, Druckgraphik, Skulpturen. Jahrhunderthalle Höchst, 17 February - 28 March, 1985, cat. no. 127 (with illu.).
Käthe Kollwitz. Druckgraphik, Handzeichnungen, Plastik. Wilhelm Busch Museum Hanover, 2 September - 28 October, 1990, cat. no. 45 (with illu.).
Different copies shown in each exhibition.

LITERATURE: Gerhard Kolberg. Käthe Kollwitz - Die Bildhauerin, in: Kölner Museums-Bulletin. Berichte und Forschungen aus den Museen der Stadt Köln, p. 56 (illu. 14).
Annette Seeler. Käthe Kollwitz. Zeichnung, Grafik, Plastik. Bestandskatalog des Käthe Kollwitz-Museums, Berlin/Leipzig 1999, cat. no. 166 with illu. and illu. of grave for which the plastic was made.

The title of this bronze relief is based on a line from the West-Eastern Divan by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The first stanza of the Talismans reads as follows: "Gottes ist der Orient/Gottes ist der Okzident!/Nord- und südliches Gelände/Ruht im Frieden seiner Hände" Käthe Kollwitz was occupied with death in all its different forms of expression throughout her life. It was for her husband, the physician Hans Kollwitz, who had his practice in a worker's quarter in Berlin, that she was confronted therewith more than most of her artist colleagues. Besides her interest in art, Kollwitz also had a social concern which she expressed as follows: "I want to act in these days" This was also the motto of her artistic creation. Käthe Kollwitz was also occupied with her own death, as show the following lines from a letter."[..] I bless my life for giving so many good things despite all hardships. I didn't waste any either, I lived up to my best. I just beg you to let me go now, my time's up [..] Your mother" written to her children on 13 June, 1944 from Nordhausen, where she stayed because of the war (quoted after Käthe Kollwitz. "Ich will wirken in dieser Zeit" Frankfurt/Berlin/Wien, Ullstein 1981, p. 147). [KD]