Arcadian Landscape with Gleim's Tomb

Counterpart to the "Memorial picture on Ewald Christian von Kleist". The inscription on the sarcophagus suggests that it is a tomb of Gleim himself, which is confirmed by the correspondence between Gleim and his poet friend Anna Louisa Karsch of January 1762. If this picture appears to be allegorical personnel, shepherds populate the scene in the second picture. The inscription "Von Kleist ward ich geliebt" suggests that this is the tomb of Gleim himself. Gleim was inspired to paint these subjects by Oeser's preoccupation with the Et-in-arcadia-ego motif, which goes back to Poussin. He practised an intensive memorial cult. He commissioned a large-scale memorial painting of Kleist from Christian Bernhard Rode in Berlin, which was installed in the Berlin Garrison Church and supplemented by Rode with memorial paintings of other war heroes. Gleim also commissioned Rode to paint paintings based on Kleist's poetry.