Meadow in Front of Leibl's Studio in Aibling

In 1883 Johann Sperl moved in with his old friend from the Munich academy, Wilhelm Leibl, who had just built himself a house and studio at Aibling, a spa town near Rosenheim. The meadow in this picture is the one in front of that studio, and Sperl gave it a tall canvas almost a metre high. The date is a small puzzle. Sperl signed it at the lower right J. Sperl München 1893, yet Leibl had left Aibling in the autumn of 1892 for the hamlet of Kutterling, taking Sperl with him, and the standard reference on Sperl dates the picture to around 1887. The two dates have not been reconciled. The word München in the signature is curious too, since by then Sperl had been living in the country for a decade.