Lynx in the Forest, c. 1835

In this oil study, Friedrich Gauermann (1807–1862) used a composition he had devised around 1830 for depictions of fighting animals. The backdrop of the scene, rendered in a horizontal format, is made up of a towering cliff face. The lower left corner of the depiction features a lynx which has caught sight of the red deer on the rock face’s plateau. A ray of light coming from above illuminates the wildcat as well as a section of the cliff, and also creates reflections in the alpine stream at the bottom of the depiction. The play of light and darkness invests the scene with a sense of tension and drama. The Biedermeier painter modeled his landscape depictions mostly on the area surrounding his birthplace and hometown of Miesenbach in Lower Austria, as well as on the Salzkammergut region. For his animal depictions, showing lynxes, bears and wolves, Gauermann derived inspiration from the engravings of Johann Elias Ridinger (1698–1767) and Carl Borromäus Andreas Ruthart (c. 1630–1703), and also executed sketches at Schönbrunn zoo.

AGW, 2023