'Nathan der Weise [Nathan the Wise]' lithograph by Jakob Friedrich Hahn. Munich, 1830

'Nathan der Weise [Nathan the Wise]' lithograph by Jakob Friedrich Hahn. Munich, 1830

'Nathan the Wise' is a German play written by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729 – 1781) in 1779. The play is a fervent plea for religious tolerance. Set in Jerusalem during the Third Crusade (1189–1192), it describes how the wise Jewish merchant Nathan, the enlightened sultan Saladin and the Knight Templar bridge their gaps between Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Its major themes are friendship, tolerance, relativism of God and a need for communication. The play's performance was forbidden by the church during Lessing's lifetime; it was first performed in 1783 in Berlin. (Lessing was a German writer, philosopher, dramatist and art critic who was active during the Enlightenment era. The character of Nathan is modeled after Lessing's friend Moses Mendelssohn, the Jewish philosopher and founder of the Jewish Enlightenment movement.)

The scene in Hahn's lithograph shows a street in Munich. A midwife carries the Jewish-Austrian satirist Moritz (Moses) Gottlieb Saphir (1795-1858) towards a church, where a fiddler and a group of Jews (some with slightly anti-Semitic features) await him. The text below the image is an excerpt from Lessing's play. The lithograph is titled at the top of the page, where a vignette shows a hand holding a balance scale upon which are balanced the New Testament and the Decalogue and the Old Testament (a visual depiction of the religious tolerance called for in the play).

Signed "F. Hahn" and dated in the plate. Blindstamped with Hahn's initials "FH". Dimensions:  45x37cm. References: Maillinger II, 401; Lentner 129b; Proebst Collection 1545. Overall very good condition. A few short closed tears around the edges and two creases where the paper was once folded in four.