Hermann Kaufmann: An Admirer of Rural Scenes

(1844 Hamburg – 1915 Prien am Chiemsee) The admirer depicted rural genre scenes with delicate attention to detail, showing a peasant boy in Bavarian costume trying to impress a young girl knitting on the farm. This finely drawn, characteristic cabinet-style picture belongs to the hand of Hugo Kaufmann, son of the renowned Hamburg genre and landscape painter Hermann Kaufmann (1808–1889). From 1861 to 1863, he studied at the Städel Art Institute in Frankfurt am Main and settled in Munich and Prien from 1871 onwards. His work especially demonstrates his talent as an outstanding painter of humorous and subtly observed scenes from Bavarian folk life, full of narrative power. He mainly created these scenes in taverns and among peasant companions, with an insightful sense for detail and lighting. Oil on mahogany. Signed and dated 1900. Literature: Irmgard Holz, Hugo Kaufmann 1844–1915, Catalogue of Paintings, H. Boettcher Verlag, Berlin 1984, p. 247, No. 1003.