About the Work
To this day, Wilhelm Busch is known for his humorous and at times ironic picture stories, above all for “Max and Moritz”, the two rascals who take pleasure in well-meaning misdeeds before they receive their bitter punishment and eventually meet their end. These picture stories impressively prove tThat Busch was a true talent in both the art of drawing and of poetry. Yet, they also show Busch as a fine observer of basic human nature.
To his Frankfurt patron Johanna Kessler (1831–1915), with whom he was in close contact from 1868–1877, Wilhelm Busch dedicated a series of manuscripts written in preparation for the picture stories or that he created himself in laborious ‘Minnedienst’ (courtly love). The manuscripts came to the Städel Museum in 1930/31 and provide an insight into his working process. Usually, he created the picture sequence first, with a free, sure hand on large sheets of paper. Busch then cut them out and remounted them, as was the case with the series of pictures for “Jobsiade” (1871, inv. nos. 15325–15357, Städel Museum). Then he sent them to the publisher. Here, the rhymed text came later, but the were usually created in a second step in any case. In contrast, the pictorial manuscripts of “Pater Filucius” (1872, inv. nos. 15518–15559, Städel Museum), “Dideldum!” (1873, inv. nos. 15359–15416) and “Abenteuer eines Junggesellen” (1875, inv. nos. 15429–15517) already show verses and pictures. Furthermore, they anticipate the later typesetting in the way they are arranged. For printing, the pictures had to be reproduced as wood engravings. For that purpose, Busch repeated the master images directly onto the printing block, usually in pencil, whereby he had to mirror the image for a correct print. The engraving was then done by a professional xylographer. The pictorial manuscripts for “Hans Huckebein” (c. 1870, inv. nos. 15560–15572, Städel Museum) and “Saint Anthony of Padua” (1871, inv. no. 15358, Städel Museum) were created after the fact, so after the prints, as a favour to the patroness Johanna Kessler. He based their design on medieval pictorial manuscripts, a design that is also consistent with the content of “Saint Anthony” – yet he gives the legend another ironic spin this way.
The parody of Saint Anthony of Padua was published in 1870 by the Strasbourg publisher Moritz Schauenburg. The book was initially banned in Germany shortly after its publication because of its “disparagement of religion”. As early as 1870, Busch gave the first pictorial manuscript, which had served as a print template and sample for the book design, to his friend Anna Johanna Burger (today the Wilhelm Busch Museum, Hanover). It was not until 1871 that he produced the present version, perhaps his most elaborate pictorial manuscript, for Johanna Kessler. The text alone took him three weeks. Busch worked according to the printed model, just in a smaller format, and adapted the text and images in various ways to the character of the pictorial manuscript. As with the re-creation of “Hans Huckebein”, Busch drew the individual condensed motifs freehand albeit expertly, without any preparatory drawing. – Cf. the remarks by Hans Ries in: Wilhelm Busch. The Picture Stories. Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe, Hanover 2002, vol. II, pp. 894–1053, esp. pp. 995 and 1008–1012.
