This painting by Ernst Henseler portrays the most well-known of many popular anecdotes about Prussian Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm, who reigned for just ninety-nine days as Kaiser Friedrich III (March 9, 1888–June 15, 1888) before succumbing to throat cancer. It depicts an event that occurred in 1875. When a schoolmaster in the village of Bornstedt (near Potsdam) had to rush to his mother’s deathbed, Friedrich Wilhelm promptly stepped into the breach and taught a history class that his students would not soon forget. That the artist painted this scene ten years after the death of “Our Fritz” suggests the veneration in which he was still held during Wilhelm II’s reign.