Oil painting, 'Landscape with Huntsmen and Beggars', Johann Andreas Herrlein, ca. 1775

Bequeathed by John M. Parsons

Bequeathed by John M. Parsons, 1870

Historical significance: Companion piece to 567-1870. The composition depicts two huntsmen on horseback, accompanied by a game keeper with a dog, giving alms to a group of beggars whom they have encountered in a forest clearing. At the left a boy tends a goat which is nibbling at foliage. At the right a woman with children and two heavily laden figures look on. One of the beggars is dressed as an old soldier, and is missing his right arm. The huntsmen have been identified by Ernst Kramer (written communication, 14 June 1967) as Heinrich von Bibra (1711-88), Prince-bishop of Fulda, founder of the Fulda porcelain factory, and his steward Graner. The scene is near Fulda, and the ruins of the Ebersburg appear in the distant left background.

Herrlein also painted a formal portrait of Heinrich von Bibra (1711-88), who became Prince-bishop of Fulda in 1759. This exists in a number of versions, that in the Domuseum Fulda dated 1765. See Stefanie Heraeus, Spaetbarock und Klassizismus, Bestandskatalog der Gemaelde in den Staatlichen Museen Kassel, Staatliche Museen Kassel 2003, p.75, cat. no.53.

Johann Andreas HERRLEIN (1723-96)
German (Fulda) School
Born in Münnerstadt, in 1746 he entered the workshop of the Fulda court painter Emanuel Wohlhaubter, whose daughter he married in 1747, and succeeded him as court painter in 1756. The chamber of mirrors in the Palace at Fulda is decorated with 44 of his paintings (1757). Following the death of the Prince Bishop of Fulda Adalbert von Walderdorff in 1759 and the French siege of the city, he broadened his circle of patrons, and from 1782 he painted numerous works for the art market in Frankfurt, especially genre scenes in the manner of 17th century Netherlandish painters such as David Teniers the younger and Adriaen Brouwer.

568-1870