[1] The painting is representative of the introspective and conservative mood in Europe during the period between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the revolutions of 1848, but at the same time pokes fun at those attitudes by embodying them in the fusty old scholar unconcerned with the affairs of the mundane world.

1850, was listed under the title of The Librarian and sold in Vienna to Ignaz Kuranda in 1852 and now belongs to the collection of the Museum Georg Schäfer in Schweinfurt.

[3] The picture shows an untidily dressed elderly bibliophile standing on top of a library ladder with several large volumes jammed under his arms and between his legs as he peers short-sightedly at a book.

[4] The intensity with which he stares at his book in the dusty old once-glorious library with its frescoed ceiling mirrors the inward-looking attitudes and return to conservative values that affected Europe during the period.

He was almost entirely self-taught and although his techniques were developed by copying the Dutch Masters, his portrayal of his subjects is believed to have been influenced by the works of William Hogarth and Honoré Daumier.