Lot 2291 Dα

The present work was confirmed by Hermann Uhde-Bernays in 1926 to be a product of Carl Spitzweg's own hand. The catalogue raisonné by Siegfried Wichmann lists three very similar variants of the composition, which are also not signed (Carl Spitzweg. Verzeichnis der Werke, Stuttgart 2002, p. 507f, nos. 1384, 1385 and 1387). These three paintings, the first two somewhat larger, the third a little smaller than our picture, are dated by Wichmann to the 1870s. In one of the works, a church on a mountain can also be seen in the background. The artist repeatedly varied the motif of a dairymaid in the forest or in a gorge in numerous other compositions.