Käthe Kollwitz drew on her experience as a mother, and perhaps also on that of her own mother who lost three children in infancy, to execute a sorrowful lithograph called Pietà in 1903, and later the etching Tod, Frauund Kind (Death, Woman, and Child) in 1910. Kollwitz's models for her works were her husband's patients at his medical practice in a poor Berlin neighborhood and, at times, the artist herself and her son Peter. Numerous preliminary drawings, including Abschied (Farewell), were executed as studies for the etching, all of them based on the artist's recollection of the fear she felt when, during the serious illness of her son, she faced the chilling fact that he might die--a realistic fear at that time in Berlin. Kollwitz often created preparatory drawings for prints in the same way that most artists execute drawings as studies for paintings. The print medium was the core of her practice and was especially suited to her personal talent for working in black and white. Perhaps more important to Kollwitz, since prints are issued in multiple impressions, she could create art that could be owned by many, in keeping with her socialist ideals.