Product info

This is a decorative vintage school map titled “Mangrove and Nipa,” produced in the Netherlands by C.L. Van Balen under the series “Schoolwandplaten, Ons Schoone Indie” and published by D.A. Daamens Uitgevers Maatschappij N.V., ‘s Gravenhage. The image on the map is based on a work by the painter Ernst Vollbehr.

Ernst Vollbehr, although largely forgotten today, was a “travel art” painter. Throughout his career, he embarked on numerous painting trips, spanning several years, capturing the beauty of various locations across continents. He amassed thousands of paintings, sketches, and diary entries from these journeys, earning him the nickname of the “tropical painter.”

Vollbehr began his artistic journey in 1892 as an apprentice in decorative painting. He furthered his studies in art, attending institutions in Berlin, Dresden, Paris, and Rome from 1897. During the early 1900s, he found artistic affinity with the Art Nouveau movement. His participation in expeditions to Albania (1904) and Brazil (1907) introduced him to the art of travel painting. Subsequently, between 1909 and 1914, Vollbehr embarked on artistic journeys to the four German-African colonies.

The painter’s most notable contributions are in the realm of landscape paintings. In 1957, the German Museum for Regional Geography in Leipzig acquired approximately 900 of Vollbehr’s paintings, primarily landscapes and ethnological depictions.

Please note that this particular piece is a reproduction of an Ernst Vollbehr painting, printed on paper and affixed to a cardboard backing with metal corners.