A Guardian Angel Rescuing Emperor Maximilian from the Martinswand (Alfred Rethel)

Alfred Rethel (1816–1859) was a German painter celebrated for his powerful historical scenes and dramatic, often haunting, graphic works, such as the depicted "A Guardian Angel Rescuing Emperor Maximilian from the Martinswand"

Born in Aachen in 1816, Rethel displayed a remarkable artistic talent from childhood. At just thirteen, a drawing he produced earned him admission to the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where he received formal training and created early works such as his much-admired depiction of St. Boniface.

At twenty, Rethel moved to Frankfurt, where he was commissioned to create frescoes for the imperial hall in the Römer, portraying notable figures from German history. During this period, he also produced a series of compositions inspired by the Old Testament. A few years later, he won the competition to decorate the council house in Aachen with frescoes illustrating scenes from the life of Charlemagne, though the project would not begin until several years afterward. In the meantime, he completed numerous easel paintings and drawings, including a dramatic cycle on Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps, revealing the eerie emotional intensity that would later define his art.

Rethel visited Rome in 1844, creating works for churches back in his homeland. By 1846, he had returned to Aachen to begin the Charlemagne frescoes. Around this time, however, symptoms of mental illness—believed to stem from a childhood injury—began to surface. Despite periods of instability, or perhaps intensified by them, Rethel produced some of his most memorable and unsettling imagery during these years.

Among his most famous designs are macabre allegories such as Nemesis, in which divine vengeance pursues a murderer, and Death the Avenger, depicting a skeleton attending a masked ball and playing bones like a violin. These works were so vivid and psychologically charged that they reportedly disturbed even his fellow artists. In response, Rethel later created the gentler companion piece, Death the Friend. He also produced a notable series titled The Dance of Death, inspired by the revolutionary turmoil in Belgium in 1848. Executed with a technique rooted in the tradition of Albrecht Dürer, these drawings remain the cornerstone of his legacy.

Rethel died on December 1, 1859, in Düsseldorf from complications of a brain disease. In his final years he was cared for by his brother, Otto Rethel, along with his wife, Marie Grahl, and their daughter Else Sohn-Rethel, who later became an artist herself.