Family Asleep by the Hearth and Two Armed Warriors, Germania, 1842

This original antique lithograph, hand colored, comes from the Galleria Universale di Tutti i Popoli del Mondo (Venice, Giuseppe Antonelli, 1842). The upper image shows a family before a wooden hut and a plank fence. A bearded man in a green mantle reclines on his elbow behind a sleeping figure covered with a purple cloth, a red clay jar stands at left, and at right a woman with long dark hair and a fur over her shoulder nurses a child beside a blazing fire whose smoke rises against the hut. The lower image shows two bearded warriors. At left a man wearing an animal skin with the head drawn over his own as a hood carries a spear, a short sword and a bundle of javelins and rests on a tall wooden shield; at right a bare chested man in loose white trousers holds a spear, a long shield slung on his back.

The top margin is lettered "Tom IV", "GERMANIA" and "Tav 67". The upper caption reads "Famiglia addormentata attorno al focolare" (Family asleep around the hearth) and the lower "Milizia" (Militia).

The scenes picture the early inhabitants of Germany, with the simple timber dwelling, the open fire, animal skins, spears and tall wooden shields that Roman writers such as Tacitus described in their accounts of the Germanic peoples.

A dramatic plate for a collection of early history or for anyone with an interest in the German past.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.