On April 28, 1874, the Wagner family entered the premises of their new residence in Bayreuth. The grand villa, designed from the ideas of Wilhelm Neumann and continued under the watchful eye of master builder Carl Wölfel, who followed Wagner's precise instructions, however, presented a bare facade, too stark for Cosima's liking. Wagner thus conceived of filling the space with a frieze commissioned to Isidor Robert Krausse (Weimar 1834 – Dresden 1903).
In 1869, Wagner had already commissioned the painter for two portraits of Schiller and Beethoven: the former a copy of Friedrich August Tischbein's famous painting, and the latter a replica of Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller's work.
Krausse created a large decoration using the sgraffito technique, which involved applying different layers of contrasting plaster colors that were then scratched to outline the desired design.
The great work of the German painter thus depicts Wotan at the center, around whose head his ravens Hugin and Munin fly. Next to the Norse god stands the young Siegfried, carrying the sword Notung on his shoulder. On either side, the two muses of theater and music, Melpomene and Euterpe, observe the god with reverence as he, leaning on his spear, invokes blessings upon the Meister's house. Two griffins above, one on each side, and a border of oak leaves frame the majestic depiction.
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