This genre painting ”The sewing class” was executed around 1860s , early 1870s by famous German painter August Heinrich Niedmann (1826 Braunschweig - 1910 Ried near Kochel am See).
Niedmann received his first instruction from his father Martin David Niedmann (1790 - probably 1860), who worked as a teacher and painter of miniature portraits at the Stobwasser lacquerware factory in Braunschweig. He then became a student of the landscape painter and inspector of the Braunschweig gallery Heinrich Brandes at the Collegium Carolinum, who referred him to the Munich Art Academy for further studies. On January 27, 1851, his entry is recorded in the register of the academy in the subject of painting, which at that time was headed by the history painter Wilhelm Kaulbach. In Munich he made friends and acquaintances, among others, with the painters Friedrich Wilhelm Pfeiffer from Wolfenbüttel, Hermann Bethke (1825-1895) from Braunschweig, Wilhelm Lichtenheld (1817-1891) from Hamburg and the brothers August (1820-1904) and Franz Seidel ( 1818-1903) and Joseph Petzl from Munich. He was married to the Braunschweig pastor's daughter Wilhelmine Michlenhoff (* 1830).

Niedmann took his motifs, which he mostly located in Bavaria and Austria, but occasionally also in Holland or East Frisia, from family and country life, including weddings, St. Nicholas evenings and Christmas presents, scenes with game shooters and dairymaids on the alpine pastures or from fairs. The painting A Village Genius was created in 1872, in which a boy draws the equestrian portrait of Kaiser Wilhelm on the school blackboard. The art trade offered compositions such as The Congratulations Reception, The Toast to the Bride and Groom, The Caught Apple Thieves, An Important Letter, Blind Man's Cow, The Seventieth Birthday and Father's Joys from 1886 and The Hunter in Love from 1896. The Municipal Museum in Braunschweig acquired two paintings.

Literature: Thieme/Becker "Allgemeines Kuenstlerlexikon". Leipzig, 1999; Friedrich von Boetticher , List of painters of 19h century, Dresden, 1898 (both in German); Bénézit (in French).

Inscription: signed lower right; remainer of antique label with inscription and wax seal ( both illegible).

Technique: oil on canvas, rare original period gilded frame.

Measurements: unframed w 13 1/3" x h 16 1/8" (34 x 41 cm); framed w 21” x h 23 1/2” (54 x 60 cm).

Condition: in very good condition.