Behind what at first glance appears to be a sweet and innocent pastoral scene lies a literary, musical and artistic cosmos that was characteristic of mid-19th century Germany. King Ludwig II of Bavaria had commissioned Wilhelm von Kaulbach, who had been court painter under Ludwig I since 1837, to capture scenes from Schiller's dramas in large-format drawings. Convinced by the result, the king subsequently ordered further episodes from the works of William Shakespeare, Wagner's music dramas and the present scene, which illustrates a poem by the medieval minstrel Walter von der Vogelweide. In his song-like poem, the lyrical female ego describes the intimate encounter with her lover, who prepares a bed of roses for her "under the linden trees, on the heath". The only witnesses to this amorous encounter are nature and a nightingale. What is unusual about this song is the woman's perspective and the encounter that takes place in mutual appreciation. Kaulbach's painting thus combines the enthusiasm for the Middle Ages typical of the 19th century, the idea of a ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ in which music, literature and art merge, as well as the enthusiasm for Wagner's operas, who created a musical monument to the minstrels in his "Tannhäuser". Kaulbach stages the scene in a pastoral meadow landscape inhabited by a flock of sheep in front of an impressive, shimmering blue mountain range in the delicate mellifluousness of late Romanticism. With the slightly undressed nymph resisting the shepherd's advances, he adds an erotic component to the deep and pure feeling of romantic love. [KT]