Grützner: The greatest artist

Faust is being performed at the theatre. The actor playing Mephistopheles has just had a rich harvest of laurels and is dragging his wreaths around; “To the greatest artist” is written, ambiguously enough, on the ribbon of one of the wreaths. The actors playing Margarethe and Faust look enviously and listens angrily to the words of the director, who is applauding the “greatest artist” in the background.
Photographic copy after Eduard von Grützner. There's a larger version here: The greatest artist.