This pair of mood landscapes was executed by famous Austrian painter and important teacher of Austrian landscape painting Eduard Peithner von Lichtenfels (1833 in Vienna - 1913 in Berlin).

From 1872 to 1901 he held a professorship for landscape painting at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts and was rector there between 1878 and 1880 and from 1897 to 1899.

Lichtenfels came from the Bohemian-Austrian noble family Peithner von Lichtenfels and was born in 1833 as the son of the philosopher Johann Peithner von Lichtenfels (1793–1866). He attended the Vienna Academy under Franz Steinfeld and Thomas Ender and stayed in Düsseldorf in 1857 and 1858, where he mainly followed Karl Friedrich Lessing, but was not his direct student. During this time he was also a member of the local artists' association Malkasten. After his return to Vienna, he took part in the 1859 campaign as an infantry lieutenant. In 1871 he became a teacher and in 1872 a professor of landscape painting at the Vienna Academy, where he took over the management of the school for landscape painting. In the following years, Peithner von Lichtenfels took his students to the Wachau several times, especially to Weißenkirchen and Dürnstein. The latter became a particularly popular place to study after an excursion that Peithner von Lichtenfels undertook with his students in 1888, which also led to the Wachau establishing itself as a painter's landscape. Eduard Peithner von Lichtenfels' school of landscape painting ultimately produced the most important and enthusiastic painters in the Wachau. Lichtenfels' students included Ferdinand Andri, Wilhelm Bernatzik, Eduard Zetsche, Heinrich Tomec, Hans Wilt, Johann Nepomuk Geller and Maximilian Suppantschitsch. Most of these artists remained artistically connected to the Wachau throughout their lives, and some even settled there. After his retirement from the Vienna Academy in 1901, Lichtenfels spent time in Nuremberg and Berlin, where he died in 1913.

Lichtenfels first appeared in the Austrian Art Association's exhibition in 1854 with a section of Iffingen in South Tyrol, then depictions of Austrian and Bavarian mountains followed; Most of his motifs, however, came from Lower Austria and he liked to depict forests and swamps in the area around Lundenburg (today Břeclav in the Czech Republic). A motif from Lundenburg is in the Imperial Gallery in Vienna. Lichtenfels used dramatic, detailed landscapes to create intimate details of nature and idyllic moods. He created oil, tempera and pastel paintings. His preferred technique, however, was a mixture of pen and ink drawings with watercolors, which produced particularly fresh and attractive works. Lichtenfels' works can now be found in the most important Austrian painting collections.

Literature : Dictionary of Austrian Painters of the 19th Century by Dr.H.Fuchs, Vienna 1972;XXIII, 1929, 191.

Inscription: each signed with Monogramm L.  

Technique: each oil on wood. original period frame.

Measurements: each unframed w 5 7/8" x h 8 1/4" (15 x 21 cm), framed w 8 5/8" x h 11" (22 x 28 cm)

Condition: in very good condition.