Attributed to Hermann Ottomar Herzog (1832-1932) German/American, Oil on Panel Landscape. Unsigned on Chamfered Panel.

Overall Size: 13 x 15 in.

Sight Size: 6 1/4 x 8 1/2 in.

#5582

Hermann Ottomar Herzog was born in the city of Bremen, Germany in November 1832. In 1850 he enrolled in the Dusseldorf Academy, studying under J.W. Schirmer and Rudolph Wiegmann while taking additional private lessons from Andreas Achenbach, C. F. Lessing, and the Norwegian artist Hans Gude. Throughout the 1850s he traveled and painted extensively throughout Italy, Switzerland, Holland, and Norway. His reputation grew so quickly that some of his earliest patrons included Queen Victoria and Grand Duke Alexander of Russia. Establishing a studio and home in Grafenberg, Herzog became a much-sought-after teacher and married Hermine Brandt in 1864. Shortly after the birth of their second son the family emigrated to the United States, settling in Philadelphia in 1871. He painted throughout the Northeast and West, becoming one of the most lauded landscape artists of the late 19th Century. When his eldest son moved to Gainesville, Florida in 1893 to become a chemist, Herzog visited and fell in love with Florida’s unspoiled beauty. He spent every winter there until 1912 painting over 300 oils of its wild terrain, depicting the deer, herons, razorbacks, bears and other fauna. Herzog had by then increased his net worth to over three million dollars, roughly equivalent to $120 million in 2024. Financially set for the rest of his life but still painting as prolifically as ever, at sixty-seven Herzog withdrew from the commercial art world to paint solely for his own enjoyment. He died in February 1932, nine months shy of his 100th birthday. His estate included an incredible 1,000 paintings, but he had sold thousands more during his long life.