(Freiberg 1828–1905 Dresden)
A springtime landscape, signed, dated Ed. Leonhardi 1858, oil on canvas, 90 x 120 cm, framed, (Rei)

Compare:
Friedrich von Boetticher, Malerwerke des 19. Jahrhunderts, Hofheim am Taunus 1979, vol. I, 2, p. 875, no. 11.

The German landscape painter and lithographer Emil August Eduard Leonhardi was born in Freiberg, Saxony, and was a student at the Dresden Academy from 1844 onwards. Adrian Ludwig Richter numbered among his professors. Over the course of his career, he travelled to the Harz Mountains, Northern Bohemia, Munich, Salzburg and Upper Bavaria and continued his education in Düsseldorf from 1855 to 1859. In his last year in Düsseldorf, he married Apoline Schotel, the daughter of the marine painter Petrus Johannes Schotel. At the age of 38, he was appointed an honorary member of the Royal Saxon Academy of Fine Arts. In the following year he inherited his father’s “Chemische Fabrik”, which gave him the financial leeway to build a villa and set up a foundation for a poorhouse.
In 1879, the artist acquired an old mill known as the “Hentschelmühle”, which he used to build his studio. After further alterations, the mill finally became the half-timbered house, also dubbed the “red blackbird”, which is now known as the Leonhardi Museum.
Leonhardi was able to create his motifs of Central German forests and villages in a Romantic atmosphere thanks to his outstanding talent with lighting. Occasionally, darker-coloured paintings can also be found among his works. Until this day Eduard Leonhardi is well-known for his paintings depicting German forests.