Adolph von Menzel was a German artist known for his drawings, paintings, and lithographs in the German Realist style. His magnum opus is largely regarded to be the History of Frederick the Great (1840), which included roughly 400 illustrations. Meticulously drafted with a high degree of historical accuracy, von Menzel’s output was popular during his lifetime, as the Nationalgalerie in Berlin gave him his first grand retrospective in 1884. Born Adolph Friedrich Erdmann von Menzel on December 8, 1815 in Breslau, Prussia (now Wroclaw, Poland), the artist learned printmaking from the family business, which he took over after his father’s death in 1932. After a brief stint at the Berlin Art Academy, von Menzel began to receive commissions from publishers...