A family gathering wood in the hills above Heidelberg

August Lucas was born in Darmstadt, where he was a pupil of Franz Hubert Müller in the Darmstadt school of drawing. He was strongly influenced by the artist brothers Carl Philip and Daniel Fohr, with whom he later travelled around Europe, studying and painting landscapes in Switzerland and Italy before returning to Germany in 1839, where he spent most of the remainder of his life. Whilst travelling he had met Johann Wilhelm Schirmer, whose influence is evident in the warm light on the hills of the present lot, which depicts the city of Heidelberg, the forests and castle of which dominate Lucas' sketch books. He had a close association with the town through the Fohr brothers and also through his second wife, Eva Maria Spengel, who was also from there.