In this work, Käthe Kollwitz depicted an intimate and happy mother-child relationship – possibly as a poignant contrast to war and mourning.
A second, larger edition of this lithograph was published in Bildermann in 1916 (No. 2, 20 April 1916) by Paul Cassirer.
What is left for the mother? One boy on the right, one on the left – my right-hand and my left-hand boy, as they called themselves. One is dead, the other so far away that I cannot help him. My entire life as a mother is really over already. And I have such terrible longing for this life. To have my children – my boys – back, one on the right, one on the left, and to dance with them as in the old days when spring came and Peter brought back flowers and we danced a spring dance.«
