Ilustration for The Wild Hunter

The ballad The Wild Hunter (Der wilde Jäger, 1778), composed by the pre-Romantic poet Gottfried August Bürger, was executed in the form of an album of prints in 1827 in Prague. In the album, the poem is accompanied by five etchings based on the designs of Josef Führich and a commentary by Anton Müller, an art critic and professor of aesthetics at the Prague University. The fifth sheet is an illustration of the poem’s final verse, in which the central figure of the Count - the hunter - remains alone after a ruthless and wild ride through the countryside and is being pursued by the infernal powers. In the picture, Führich employed the ballad’s motif of a huge hand rising from the ground to emphasize the feeling of terror that comes as punishment for blasphemy and the lack of humility.