Landscape  painting with resting children on a forest path by Fritz Ebel (actually Friedrich Carl Werner Ebel 1835 Lauterbach, Hesse - 1895 Düsseldorf). 

After an apprenticeship as a pharmacist and working as a pharmacist's assistant in Osterode am Harz, Fritz Ebel became a private student of August Lucas in 1855. From 1857 to 1861 Ebel was a student of Johann Wilhelm Schirmer at the Academy in Karlsruhe. From 1862 he lived as a freelance painter in Düsseldorf, where he initially lived with fellow painters Eugen Bracht, Carl Harveng and August Kessler. There he was a member of the Malkasten artists' association and undertook numerous study trips, including to the Bavarian highlands in 1863, to Tyrol in 1865 and also to Italy in the 1860s. One of Ebel's private students was the painter Adolf Eduard Storck.

From the beginning of the 1860s Ebel took part in major art exhibitions in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Vienna and at the Barmen Art Association. Fritz Ebel painted mainly forest landscapes in the German low mountain ranges (Vogelsberg, Rhön, Spessart, Eifel, Harz) and is therefore known as the painter of the German forest. But landscape motifs from the Alps, northern Germany and southern France can also be found in his work. His early works are still influenced by late romanticism. But he soon broke away from this and moved on to a freer, naturalistic conception of landscape, as represented in realism. Towards the end of his career, impressionistic influences also become noticeable. At the Crystal Palace exhibition in London in 1884, Fritz Ebel received a bronze medal.
Most of his works are privately owned. The Hohhaus Museum in his birthplace Lauterbach owns and displays several works, including "Spessart Landscape" (oil on canvas, 60 × 80 cm, undated). Further works are in the Kunsthalle Bremen, the Hamburger Kunsthalle, the Staatliche Kunsthalle Hamburg, the Museum of Fine Arts Leipzig, the Museum Wiesbaden, the Von der Heydt Museum Wuppertal and the Museum Citadel in Jülich.

Literature: lexicons by: Thieme/Becker, Leipzig,1999; Sauer, Leipzig, 2002; ”The Lauterbach painter of the German forest”,  Brochure for the exhibition on the occasion of his 150th birthday in the Hohhaus Museum in the city of Lauterbach, from April 21 to June 2, 1985Mülfarth, 1987.

Inscription: signed lower right.

Technique: oil on canvas. Original period salon gold-plated frame.

Measurements: unframed w 36 5/8" x h 27 1/2” (93 x 70 cm); framed w 47 5/8" x h 38 1/2” (121 x 98 cm).

Condition: in very good condition.