George Grosz *

(Berlin 1893–1959)
Die wahre Jakobsleiter, 1924, signed and dated, red pen, pen, ink and white gouache on paper, 78 x 58 cm, framed

This work is registered in the George Grosz Estate, Berlin and is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity

Provenance:
Studio of the artist, Berlin 1924
George Grosz Estate, 1959
European Private Collection
Sale, Christie’s, New York, 17 May 1977, lot 119
European Private Collection

Literature:
Der Knüppel, Satirische Zeitschrift, IV, no 9, December 1926, p. 3 with ill
E. J. Gumbel, Verräter verfallen der Feme!, Opfer/Mörder/Richter 1919–1929, Malik-Verlag Berlin 1929, with ill. on the cover
H. Hess, George Grosz, VEB Verlag der Kunst Dresden 1982, plate 114, p. 151 with ill.


Georg Grosz created this drawing in 1924, during a time when Germany was gripped by profound economic, political, and social turmoil.
In the aftermath of the First World War, the country was burdened with extraordinarily high reparation payments, which triggered rampant inflation that reached its apex in 1923.
Grosz’s piece Die Wahre Jakobsleiter resonates powerfully within this cultural context, serving as a denunciation of the brutal suppression of political dissent. At first glance, the image conveys an unmistakable scene: a man lies bleeding on the ground while being viciously beaten. Upon closer inspection, however, a complex hierarchy of power emerges, ascending from the shoulders of the torturer in the foreground all the way to the background of the drawing.
Descending the “ladder” from top to bottom, the first figure in the background – identifiable only by his elegant clothing – rests his disproportionately large hands upon the shoulders of a senior military officer, who in turn does the same to a subordinate, and so on, down to the figure who physically carries out the violence.
In this work, Grosz appropriates the traditional visual language of Jacob’s Dream, transforming the biblical Ladder of Angels into a “ladder of power”, which he holds accountable for the persecution of political opponents in Germany between 1919 and 1922.
The drawing first appeared in 1926 in the magazine Der Knüppel, and was republished in 1929 as the cover illustration for Emil Julius Gumbel’s text Verräter verfallen der Feme!