At the beginning of their friendship, while still at the Vienna Academy, Franz Pforr and Friedrich Overbeck imagined the female characters Sulamith and Maria, later also known as Italia and Germania. For years, they were the subject of drawings the two men exchanged, and were at the center of their conversations and stories. In 1808, Pforr drew the two female figures for his friend, showing them in intimate companionship – with numerous allusions to Dürer. In 1832, the Frankfurt Art Association commissioned a lithograph of the drawing, thus turning the once personal gift into a popular print.