Braith, Anton (1836-1905; German)
The Stud Herd 1875
Oil on canvas, 53.0 x 96.0 cm
Purchased, 1884
National Gallery of Victoria (p.310.1-1)
The painter, a native of Munich, was “a farm labourer’s son who took an interest in drawing animals at a very early age” (according to Bénézit), and subsequently specialized in scenes like this – evidently to the taste of many of Australia’s colonial-era gallery-goers and patrons.
A similar work was bought for Sydney in 1883; and yet another example, this time with bonus sheep, was donated to the NGV in 1914.
Refs.
AR 1884, p.35; NGV 1894, p.19 (I.La Trobe Gallery, no.21); NGV 1905, p.3 (I.La Trobe Gallery, no.4; ill.) [£210]
For Braith’s Shepherdess with sheep and goats 1874, part of John Connell’s 1914 gift, see http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/col/work/3812. For Braith, see AKL 13 (1996), pp.561-62, and Bénézit 2, p.1119 (listing both the Melbourne and Sydney pictures); and for his Returning from Pasture (1878), see http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/725/