19th Century oil on oak panel of a horse standing by a lake with two cows set in an evening landscape. The painting is attributed to Louis Robbe (1806 - 1887) and is mounted in a quality gilded frame.
 
Louis Robbe was a Belgian artist who was born in Kortrijk in 1806 and died in Brussels in 1887. He was an animal painter and etcher. He was the brother of Henri Robbe and educated at the Academy in Kortrijk and student of J.B. De Jonghe (1920s). Also a student of Verboeckhoven. He obtained his doctorate in law at Ghent University in 1830 and took over his father''s cabinet in 1935. He started around 1833-1835 with painting and settled settled in Brussels in 1840.
 
Robbe preferred scenes with cattle, sheep and goats which were realistic in design. Later he also focused on the landscape. He exerted a great influence on the younger generation of animal painters. An exert from the press: ''The landscape was for L.R. not a ''decor'', but a space in which his figures moved. He preferred cows, which he depicted anatomically correct and unadorned. The characters depicted, usually cowkeepers, shepherds and shepherdesses, on the other hand, play a subordinate role in the landscape.''
 
He has work in the Museums in Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, Bruges, Kortrijk, Liège, Tournai. Mentioned in the Lexicon of West Flemish visual artists IV, BAS I and Two centuries of signatures of Belgian artists. (Piron)
 
Robbe warded in Paris at the Universal Exhibition of 1855. Bronze medal in 1837, First outdoor animal painter of the Belgian school (Preceding the Barbizon school) Museums: Paris - Brussels - Moscow (Rounianzeff).