The Art Journal (London), 1890
In 1890 The Art Journal of London ran a series visiting artists’ studios in Munich. One installment (pp. 13–14) climbs “two staircases in No. 44” of the Findlingstrasse to find Frau Hermione von Preuschen. It is the single richest contemporary English-language account of her — and independent confirmation of the Mors Imperator story:
Any idea that in this studio our thoughts can only flit like a butterfly from one flower to another, maligns the genius of Frau Hermione von Preuschen. To disprove it, we have only to recall a work of hers which made a great commotion in the Art world a few years ago, ‘Mors Imperator.’ The whole of cultured society was interested in this picture, which, after being rejected by the Berlin Exhibition Jury, drew a large paying public in the exhibitions of the principal cities of Germany and Austria.
The writer even reads the scandal-picture back into her signature genre: “And yet was not ‘Mors Imperator’ still-life — marvellous still-life? Is not Death also in the flowers and fruit…?”