Lot Essay
The present work depicts the funeral of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, the leaders of the revolutionary Spartakus Bund, the left-wing socialist party opposed to the newly established German Republic. They were murdered during the Spartakus Bund revolt in Berlin in January 1919 and were henceforth considered martyrs for the cause of the working-class, for which Pechstein, like many of his contemporary artist friends, had much sympathy.