Shortly before the turn of the century, it was sold to a private gallery in Zurich and only came into the possession of the Hamburger Kunsthalle in 1902, which made it accessible to the public for the first time.

[1] The viewer looks slightly elevated over a crowd of people gathered in front of the northern portico of the German Cathedral on Berlin's Gendarmenmarkt.

[17] Menzel captured the social heterogeneity of the crowd; we can see bourgeoisie, craftsmen, students and members of the militia, as well as some women, children and a worker.

[18] According to Peter Paret, most of the people depicted belong to groups that made up the majority of the barricade fighters, above all journeymen, master craftsmen and the social middle class.

The ceremony began on the Gendarmenmarkt: the coffins of 183 fallen soldiers, decorated with wreaths and ribbons, were laid out on the steps of the German Cathedral.

They came from all walks of life, including merchants, members of the Berlin Craftsmen's Association, factory workers from the locomotive manufacturer August Borsig and delegations from other cities.

After the end of the short services, the funeral procession set off in the direction of the specially created Cemetery of the March Fallen outside the city gates.

[32] Menzel described his impressions to his friend and patron, the wallpaper manufacturer Carl Heinrich Arnold, in a letter as follows: Das war ein traurig feierlicher Tag, dergleichen in Berlin zu erleben, man nicht gedacht hätte.

As the coffins approached the Berlin City Palace, the crowd called on the king and his entourage to remove their headgear in honor of the March martyrs.

[34] As Menzel also drew the graves of the March martyrs in Friedrichshain, the art historian Werner Busch assumes that he accompanied the funeral procession to the end.

With assumes different circumstances of origin: According to him, the initial preparatory work, which was only carried out fleetingly, suggests that Menzel was too emotionally overwhelmed during the funeral ceremony to capture details such as groups of people on the Gendarmenmarkt in drawings.

ideals: significantly, the painting does not show the scene in which the Prussian monarch paid his respects to the March martyrs from the balcony of the Berlin City Palace, but rather the presence of all social groups during the laying out of the coffin on the Gendarmenmarkt.

Rather, Menzel tried to capture the "conflicting impulses [of ...] order and disorder" of a gathered crowd: Individual groups of people are recognizable, but do not form clear units.

[46] Françoise Forster-Hahn considers Menzel's decision to capture the morning hours shortly before the official ceremony to be an indication of the artist's political indecision.

In comparison, according to Françoise Forster-Hahn, a drawing of the funeral procession by Johann Jakob Kirchhoff in the Leipzig Illustrirte Zeitung of April 15, 1848, evokes a united front of those gathered.

[50] Paret, on the other hand, sees the faithful visual depiction as the decisive reason why Menzel did not complete the painting: While it is no coincidence that the figures in the middle foreground appear to be behaving rather statically and less communicatively, the actors on the right-hand side of the picture have much more movement and conversation implied.

[52] The American art historian Michael Fried believes that Menzel abandoned the work as he may have been dissatisfied with the blurred, blotchy depiction of the 183 coffins.

He was interested in several of Menzel's major works, including the Laying out of the March Fallen and Frederick the Great in Lissa: Bonsoir, Messieurs.

He replied that he "had gone to work with a beating heart and great enthusiasm for the ideas in whose service the victims [had] fallen, but before it was finished, he would have seen that it was all a lie or stupid stuff.

[69] Fried also believes that Menzel, "as a typical liberal, felt above all connected to the bourgeoisie and turned away from the revolution in view of the workers' willingness to use violence".

According to the art historian Gisold Lammel, Menzel wanted to see the long-dead Prussian ruler as a monarch who had accommodated the wishes of the people.

[82] The American art historian Albert Boime sees the empty space as a means by which Menzel constructs a contrast between the crowd and the main action – the laid-out coffins.

[83] The German art historian Detlef Hoffmann arrives at a similar assessment of the picture: Menzel wanted to illustrate with his photographic-like depiction of many, even unimportant details – which distract from the main event – "how even great historical moments dissolve into coincidences".

[86] Verena Hein considers the radically unembellished "contemporary witness" formulated in the painting to be unique in Germany and characteristic of Menzel alone.

While the 18th century Prussian king was reinterpreted as a pioneer of the German nation state and Menzel's royal paintings became correspondingly popular, the memory of the revolution of 1848 seemed to fade.

The American historian Peter Paret believes that without Menzel's painting, "the community-building, political and human aspects of the ceremony" would be underestimated today.

Since public mourning for the citizens killed during the protest was forbidden, Heisig had thematized an event that had taken place a long time ago.

[96] Hubertus Kohle came to a similar conclusion: Menzel had captured a social contrast between the bourgeoisie and the "lower classes" in the painting: While the former adopts a solemn demeanor, the latter would debate and gesticulate more animatedly with each other.

Frederick William IV himself was forced to bare his head in front of the coffins of the March martyrs carried into the courtyard of the Berlin City Palace under pressure from the assembled crowd.

[100] At the same time, the gentleman leaves his left hand in his pocket, which Paret interprets as disrespect: Menzel may have alluded to the figure's actual dismissive attitude.