ABSTRACT
The four-night reading of the Ring at the Hotel Baur, Feb. 16-19, 1853, had been directly preceded by a concert of the Zurich Panharmonic' on the 15th, Richard Wagner's first public appearance since the Hollander week last Spring. Soon after Uhlig's return to Dresden from his Zurich visit, Wagner sent him a postscript reply to a letter just received: "The portraits are already on the road." Uhlig, therefore, was anxious for circulation of what Wagner soon thereafter stigmatises as the "silly old dressing-gown likeness." On the lady artist's part, the portrait-painting had been a gratuitous tribute to genius; for she owned the large block of buildings in which the Wagners resided, among others, and therefore was of by no means slender means. During the sittings a change of abode was presumably discussed, since the tenant removed within two or three weeks to a larger and more convenient flat on the second floor of the Escherhauser.
