Lot 1525 Dα

Heinrich Gärtner studied under Wilhelm Schirmer at the art academy of Berlin and Ludwig Richter at the academy in Dresden. The poetic and beautiful landscapes that Gärtner painted, originally adopted from his teachers, were developed further when living in Rome between 1856 and 1866 to become heroic and historical paintings influenced by Joseph Anton Koch and Carl Rottmann. It was at this time of transition that the present painting was created. It depicts a shepherdess with children and animals in the foreground and two young walkers to the left, who could also be interpreted as an allusion to the many young German artists that, like Gärtner himself, travelled with great enthusiasm to the idealised Italian peninsula.