In January 1762, the merchant Heinrich Wilhelm Bachmann the Younger in Magdeburg presented Gleim with two small-format commemorative pictures, each of which shows a mirror image of a monument around which several people are gathered. The inscription on the monument in the present picture identifies it as a monument to Ewald Christian von Kleist, one of Gleim's closest friends, who succumbed to wounds received at the Battle of Kunersdorf in 1759. The attributes on the tombstone and in the hand of the figure in front of it refer to Kleist's merits as a poet and as an officer.
