He was born at Oppeln in Silesia on the 28th of September 1865, and during his student days at the Academy of Berlin, was influentially advised to devote himself to animal painting, for which he had evidently a special gift. He began, however, as a portrait painter, and from his pictures, particularly those of African life, it is clear that in that branch of art he would have distinguished himself; but fortunately, he could not withstand his inclination. From a painter of portraits of men and women he developed into a portrait-painter of animals, finding his subjects alive by the countryside and in menageries and zoological gardens, and then seeking them farther afield in Africa and Southern Asia, where he worked assiduously in forest and jungle. Fifty of his characteristic studies are included in this book, and in them, as in all, the blending of the animal with the surroundings is remarkable, and the faithfulness with which the landscape, painted on the spot, has been rendered is apparent at a glance. Search as we will we shall find nothing truer to nature than such triumphs of art as the Polar Bear amid the Arctic ice, the hairy Tigers by the snowy mountain lake, the slender Flamingoes in the evening landscape, the Silver Gull sweeping above the ocean waves, the Black Swans as an idyll of the pool, the Capercaillie posturing in the morning light, and many other masterpieces herein. This collection, like that of the Kuhnert Exhibition at the Fine Art Society’s Gallery in Bond Street, is arranged purely on artistic lines; no attempt has been made to classify the subjects in zoological order. It is an album of animal portraiture as fully representative of the artist as possible. The pictures have been photographically reproduced in colours from the oil paintings, and the imitation is so exact that little of the charm of the originals has been lost. CONTENTS PLATE PAGE I. THE LION (_Felis Leo_) 1 II. THE MANCHURIAN TIGER (_Felis tigris mongolica_) 4 III. THE SEAL (_Phoca vitulina_) 6 IV. THE ELK (_Alces machlis_) 8 V. THE CAPERCAILLIE (_Tetrao urogallus_) 10 VI. THE SQUIRREL (_Sciurus vulgaris_) 12 VII. THE ROE-DEER (_Capreolus caprea_) 14 VIII. THE REINDEER (_Rangifer tarandus_) 16 IX. THE DEFASSA WATERBUCK (_Cobus defassa_) 18 X. THE HARE (_Lepus europæus_) 20 XI. THE POLAR BEAR (_Ursus maritimus_) 22 XII. THE MANDRILL (_Maimon mormon_) 24 XIII. THE WOLF (_Canis lupus_) 26