A Dead Woman, from the series Death and the Maiden, 1902

On a dark, starless night, seemingly illuminated only by an unseen moon, Death cradles the head of a woman, who with the aid of a serpent, floats just above the water. August Brömse, a Symbolist follower of Max Klinger, based his darkly erotic print series, Death and the Maiden, on his fraught love affair with singer Elsa Schünemann. The two went on to marry in 1910, once Brömse had become head of the printmaking studio at Prague's Academy of Fine Art.