The Cordillera, Venezuela, with Travellers on a Road

Goering accompanied Hermann Burmeister, a naturalist and director of the Halle Zoological Museum, on his first expedition to South America in 1856, visiting Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina. He returned to Germany in 1858 and later studied under the London animal painter Joseph Wolf. He was commissioned by the British Museum to pursue his ornithological studies in South America and travelled to Venezuela in 1866 where he remained for eight years, exploring little-known parts of the country in the footsteps of Humboldt: "Er lernte in diesen Jahren Bereiche der Kstenkordillere und des Hochgebirges kennen. Seine Reiseroute stimmt ber weite Strecken mit der von Humboldt und Bellermann berein. Ausser Vogelkunde betrieb er botanische und geographische Studien. Goering leistete einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Erforschung Venezuelas; u.a. entdeckte er bis dahin unbekannte Höhlen bei Caripe." (R. Löschner, Deutsche Knstler in Lateinamerika, Berlin, 1978, p. 96.)

On his return to Germany in 1874 he worked up watercolours and drawings from his field sketches, a section of which illustrated the account of his Venezuelan travels (Vom tropischen Tieflande zum ewigen Schnee. Eine malerische Schilderung des schönsten tropenlandes Venezuela) published in Leipzig in 1890.