Mors Imperator
Her most famous work. A crowned skeleton — Death as sovereign — stands in an ermine-lined purple robe and iron crown, one foot on the globe, leaning on a sword and overturning a throne as a jeweled crown tumbles to the floor: a memento mori that no earthly power outlasts death.
The Berlin Art Exhibition jury rejected it in 1887, fearing it alluded to the 90-year-old Kaiser Wilhelm I. Preuschen rented her own rooms on Leipziger Straße and exhibited the “banned” painting for an admission fee; the scandal made her famous. It returned to public view in the Alte Nationalgalerie’s 2026 exhibition.
