Alpine landscape with a peasant family before the house on the lake , this romanticism painting was executed ca. in 1850s and due to the style, composition and comparison with other similar works by the same artist was attributed to famous Czech landscape painter Josef Navratil ( 1798 Slany - 1865 Praque). Please see additional photos of his works from the National Gallery in Praque. Navratil, apprenticed house painter with his father, in the years 1819-1823 studied under Josef Bergler at the Praque Academy . Navratil visited Germany and Switzerland for the first time in 1843, then on several occasions between 1851 and 1858. At that time he also visited Belgium, France, Italy and Austria. He was a close friend of piepenhagen - they shared almost identical views on the trades and art. Navratil , too, made his lving with his trade - house painting and decorating. A stroke in 1861 put an end to his painting; he was partially paralysed and in his last years was physically handicapped and in financial straits. Navratil´s contemporaries valued above all his muralls (Praque Castle, Libechov, Jirny, Klenova, zakupy, ploskovice etc9; however , easel paintings stood fora large proportion of his work-still-lifes with deelicacies and fruit, figurative motives as comments on everyday life and, above all, landscapes. Navratl accepted as his own the carefree playful lightheadedness of the second Rococo and the calm atmosphere of middle-class Biedermeier. He emphasized the colour qualities of paintings more than their content. He worked in the tradition represented in this country by Norbert Grund, who saw his models in Venetian and Dutch painters and in watteau. While Navratil`s landscapes owe much to a mixture of Romanticism and rococo, his genre pictures and still-lifes make him one of thr precursors of realism. He was a major influence on the next generation of painters, e.g. on Adolf Kosarek.

Literature: N.Blazickova-Horova "Czech 19th-Century painting, Cataloque of the permanent exhibition Convent of St. Agnes of Bohemia", National gallery, praque, 1998; Dr.P.Toman "New Dictionary of Czech Artists" (in Czech), Prague, 1950; Thieme/Becker "General artist dictionary"(in German) , Leipzig, 1999.

Inscription: on the reverse of frame - old inscription with the name of artist and original title in Czech.

Technique: painted in oval oil on canvas, laid down on wood panel. Original period Biedermeier frame.

Measurements: unframed w 26 1/3" x h 22 1/2" (67 x 57 cm), framed w 31 1/8" x h 27 1/4" (79 x 69 cm)

Condition: in very good condition.