Undergrowth At Winkel, Signed Henri Zuber

Oil on canvas depicting a clearing sheltering two grazing cows. Trees dominate the composition, allowing the soft light of a spring sun to filter through. Zuber painted this canvas in 1872, four years after leaving the Navy and beginning his career as a painter. It bears witness to one of his favorite subjects, the forest and, more broadly, the Sundgau countryside near the family estate. Signed lower left. Dimensions: 59.5 x 47 cm. Dimensions with frame: 71 x 86 cm.

Jean Henri Zuber was born in 1844 in Rixheim and died in 1909 in Paris. He grew up surrounded by the wallpaper factory founded by his father. After training at the Naval Academy in Paris, he began a career in the Navy and participated in expeditions to Korea, Tonkin, and the South China Sea. He embraced the art profession around 1868 and became a student of Charles Gleyre. His paintings were initially drawn from his travel memories, then he explored mythological subjects before truly focusing on what he preferred to depict: nature. He exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français from 1869 and at the Salon de la Société des Aquarellistes Français, and also participated in the Universal Expositions of 1889 and 1900. A great traveler, he also exhibited in Rome, Vienna, Munich, Stuttgart, and Venice. He was awarded the title of Knight of the Legion of Honor in 1886 and then Officer in 1906. His works can be seen at the Museums of Mulhouse, the Museum of Fine Arts of Strasbourg, the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar, and also at the Kunstmuseum Basel, the Musée d'Orsay, and the Louvre in Paris.