Today’s mood in Berlin – it must have been April, too, when Lesser Ury made sketches for this painting in 1910 on Kurfürstendamm. Back in the days when Charlottenburg was an independent city said to have been the wealthiest municipality in Prussia.

Ury himself lived at Nollendorfplatz 1 in Berlin W30 (the old postal code for Schöneberg). At the time his biggest “enemy” (it was more of a bitter competition but not one marked by malice) had his studio almost exactly 3.3 km north-east of Ury’s, in the very heart of fine Berlin. Professor Max Liebermann, the heavy-weight of Berlin art-world, and his family resided on the second floor of the house Pariser Platz No. 7.

The anecdote has it that when Lesser Ury allegedly began to spread a rumour that it was him and not Liebermann who created the exquisite light-effects in the master’s famous 1887 painting, “Flax Scourers in Laren”, Liebermann – famous for his direct ways and sense of humour – responded: “I can’t be bothered to sue Herr Ury – unless he starts telling people that it was I who painted his paintings.”