Triumphal procession of Frau Holle

This work of art is a design for the ceiling painting that was lost in 1943 due to destruction and was located above the main staircase of Kassel’s town hall – Kassel is a city in the north of the German state of Hesse, lying along the river Fulda.
It shows a female figure floating above the clouds on a cart pulled by oxen. This figure, identified as Frau Holle, is surrounded by a group of children carrying various vessels and tools.
The painter Hermann Knackfuß (1848 – 1915) devoted two years to creating this ceiling painting for Kassel Town Hall, which was inaugurated in 1909. He completed it in 1913, in time for the celebration of the thousandth anniversary of the city of Kassel.
Following the destruction of the original by air raids during the Second World War, only oil sketches of the painting have survived in the Kassel City Museum.