Summary

An oil painting titled variously as 'German Landscape' and 'Cattle in a Meadow' by the German artist Lina von Perbandt (1836-1884). The work was originally part of the art collection of wealthy Melbourne merchant and collector John Twycross, and is one of several paintings retained by the Twycross family.

The von Perbandts were a well-established, aristocratic German family from East Prussian, an area that now falls within the present-day borders of Poland. Like her brother, artist Carl von Perbandt (1832-1911), Lina studied painting at the Royal Arts Academy in Dusseldorf and had some success as a landscape artist.

Von Perbandt's painting 'German Landscape', painted in the same year at the 1880 Melbourne International Exhibition, depicts the countryside outside of the north-west German town of Düsseldorf, where she studied at the Royal Arts Academy in the 1870s. It was her only inclusion in the German Fine Art Galleries at the Melbourne Exhibition. It was subsequently purchased by Twycross, and listed for sale from his estate in October 1889 as 'Cattle in a Meadow'. It appears not to have attracted a successful buyer, and has been retained by the Twycross family.

The painting was loaned to Museum Victoria in February 2012 by the family so that it could be photographed as part of the research work into the John Twycross International Exhibitions Collection.

Description of Content

Landscape with flat green pastures, dirt roads and dilapidated wooden fences in foreground with cows, a young girl and an older woman. The sky is grey and a forest recedes into the distance.

Physical Description

Oil painting in wooden frame.

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