Menzel and His Models

Adolph Menzel, Study of Three Heads, 1898

"Menzel required great efforts from his models, often bringing them to the point of total exhaustion, but at the same time he was very grateful. 

Drawing by Adolph Menzel

"He once had a soldier sitting on a wooden model of a horse. 

"All of a sudden the man fainted and slid from the back of the horse to the ground, but before he ran after a glass of water, Menzel quickly noted with a few strokes the (fallen) position of the soldier."

From Memories of Adolph Menzel, translations of Menzel's student Carl Johann Arnold by Christian Schlierkamp.

Christian S. and I co-edited a book on Menzel's drawings, which you can get signed here.