Being depicted as a copyist is a hard judgement upon Carl Oesterley (1805-1891), who had been Professor of Art History in Göttingen since 1844. Simultaneously, he held a position as court painter at the royal Royal-Hannoverian court. Trained in Rome and consorting in Nazarene circles, his style was shaped by Romanticism and religion. Kneeling, as if in prayer, he locked himself in to transfer a crucifixion of Christ from the year 1559, in the manner of old masters, onto the large canvas – one square of the grid at the time. More originals lie waiting in the “composition basket”. The criticism of religiously glorified anachronism extends to Ritmüller’s artistic style: in this case, even his drawing is painstakingly naturalistic.