Effi Briest Details: Guido Reni & Benjamin West

The very next morning she dressed with care in discreet black and walked towards Unter den Linden to call on the Minister’s wife. She sent in her card which bore only the words: ‘Effi von Innstetten, née von Briest’. Everything else had been left off, including ‘Baroness’. ‘Her Excellency will see you’–Effi followed the servant into an anteroom where she sat down and, in spite of her agitation, examined the pictures decorating the walls, first Guido Reni’s Aurora, then opposite a few English etchings, engravings after Benjamin West in the familiar style of aquatints, full of light and shade. One of them was of King Lear on the blasted heath. 







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