Circle of Johann Christian Brand

The Belvedere catalogues this view of the countryside near Kalksburg, a village south-west of Vienna that is now part of the city, as coming from the circle of Johann Christian Brand. That label points to an unnamed painter who worked close to Brand and in his manner. The canvas is unsigned and dated to about 1790.

Brand himself, who lived from 1722 to 1795, was one of the leading landscape painters in 18th-century Vienna. He became court painter in 1766, taught landscape at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts from the early 1770s, and was among the first to paint recognisable views of Vienna and its surroundings, the kind of local scene this canvas shows. His best-known work is a series of Viennese street cries, 24 images of the city's pedlars and tradespeople, published as prints in 1775 and 1776. The Belvedere bought this painting from a Viennese collector in 1931, and it hangs in the Upper Belvedere.