(Augsburg 1825–1911 Munich)
Haymaking, signed, dated Ludwig Voltz (18)60, oil on canvas, 64.5 x 80 cm, framed, (Rei)

Provenance:
Formerly Kunstsalon J. Littauer, Munich (according to label on the reverse)
Private Collection Germany.

Ludwig Gustav Voltz was born in Augsburg in 1825. He was the son of Johann Michael Voltz, the head of the Nördlingen artist family. Ludwig went to Munich at the age of 17 and attended the Royal Academy.
Initially influenced by the battle and genre painter Peter von Hess and then by the landscape painter Adolf Heinrich Lier, he later specialised in portraits of horses. Indeed, the present lot also sees horses form the heart of a Bavarian landscape. This was a typical motif for Ludwig Gustav Voltz, whose works were always influenced by the animals depicted in them, be they horse portraits or hunting scenes.
By contrast to his better-known brother Johann Friedrich Voltz, who also had a decisive influence on Ludwig’s art, Ludwig Voltz had a much broader spectrum of images at his disposal. Later, he also devoted himself to painting hunts and provided artworks for the illustrated broadsheet “Münchener Bilderbogen”.
He was particularly appreciated in the United States, too, with his works sent to America “by the boxful”, as humorously noted in Thieme-Becker.