Schwanthaler went a step further in a plaster model dated 1840. He decorated the head with a wreath of entwined oak leaves, and the wreath in the raised left hand, which in the Klenze version was made of laurel leaves, became another oak leaf wreath, the oak being considered an intrinsically German tree. These modifications to the Bavaria statue occurred at the time of the so-called Rhine Crisis of 1840/41, which involved border disputes between France and the German Confederation and led to a surge of patriotic outbursts against the “archenemy” France. For Schwanthaler, who was in any case an enthusiastic patriot, this crisis seems to have been the motivation for portraying his Bavaria statue as emphatically fit to fight and armed with a drawn sword.