The frieze comes from the music room of the Munich villa that the mathematics professor Alfred Pringsheim and his wife Hedwig and their children had lived in at Arcisstrasse 12 since 1889. The frieze consists of 14 large-format paintings and 12 narrow borders. In total there are 26 individual pictures.
After the sale and scheduled demolition of the villa in 1934, the frieze was first loaned to the Staaatsgalerie. In 1935 it was acquired by the Staatsgalerie for 30,000 RM. This sum does not even come close to the market prices customary for Thomas' works between 1933 and 1945. The average value for a museum-worthy painting during this period was 20,000 RM. The Pringsheim couple made this sale against the background of the loss of their Munich home and the reprisals by the Nazi state, to which Pringsheim was exposed as a Jew and important collector, under great time and political pressure.
