An Italianate river landscape with herdsmen and their cattle and sheep in the foreground, a bridge and a town beyond

Having received his first instruction in landscape painting from his father Christian Hilfgott Brand, Johann Christian Brand became a pupil at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Vienna, in 1736, going on to become a member in 1769. The same year he was appointed to the academic board and made Professor of Landscape Drawing. In 1766 Brand rose to the position of court painter to Empress Maria-Theresa of Austria, a position that provided him with a regular income and further imperial commissions, such as that for his celebrated Battle of Hochkirch (after 1769; Vienna, Belvedere).
Idealized landscapes such as the present picture account for a large part of Brand’s output and were inspired in particular by Dutch and Italian 17th-century painting.