A penitent praying for mercy in a plague epidemic. Colour lithograph after F. Jenewein, 1899.

Subject described by Karel B. Mádl as follows: "But God continues in his merciless chastisement and His hand crushes and breaks down every revolt with new plague-terrors. Thousands, yea millions of dead bodies lie about and hands do not suffice to bury them. They are exposed to birds of prey in streets, squares, fields and roads. Men exhausted their power of resistance and grow conscious of their nothingness and of their sins; blood thirsty shrieks and merry voices were silenced and across the lonely plain move figures in unspeakable sadness bowed down, laden with a heavy cross and penitent. Prayers and groans for mercy rise up to the gloomy sky."