Frederick the Great and Emperor Joseph II meet in Neiße in the Year 1769 (Sketch)

Painted in 1856 and held in the Alte Nationalgalerie, 'Frederick the Great and Emperor Joseph II Meet in Neiße in the Year 1769 (Sketch)' depicts the historic diplomatic encounter between the Prussian and Habsburg monarchs at Neiße (now Nysa, Poland), one of a series of meetings between the two rulers in the late 1760s that helped maintain the uneasy peace following the Seven Years' War. As a sketch or preliminary work, this painting shows Menzel working through the compositional problem of a diplomatic encounter — two powerful rulers, their respective entourages, and the ceremony of an imperial meeting. The formal diplomatic encounter presents a different compositional challenge from battle or court entertainment, requiring the expression of precedence, formality, and mutual assessment through figure arrangement.

The sketch quality reveals Menzel's compositional process — figures and spaces are established in their basic tonal relationships before the refinement of detail that would characterise a finished exhibition canvas.