History
Carl Spitzweg painted three variations of this piece. The first, painted ca. 1850, was listed under the title of "The Librarian" and sold in Vienna to Ignaz Kuranda in 1852 and now belongs to the collection of the Museum Georg Schäfer in Schweinfurt. An exemplar of the same dimensions was painted by Spitzweg a year later and sent for sale to his New York art dealer HW Schaus. This exemplar found its way into René Schleinitz's art collection and was bequeathed to the Milwaukee Public Library and housed in their Central Library (Milwaukee, Wisconsin). A final version of the piece was painted in 1884.
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