Erzgebirge (aus der Mappe „16 Ansichten tschechischer Landschaften 'Česka Krajiná'“)

The Erzgebirge — Ore Mountains — form a long ridge along the border between Bohemia and Saxony, a region whose silver and tin mining history gave it enormous economic and cultural importance from the medieval period onward. The mining towns of the Erzgebirge developed distinctive folk traditions, including elaborate Christmas decorations and woodcarving, that survive to the present. Engelmüller's view claims the mining mountains as part of Czech cultural geography; the region was ethnically mixed Czech and German, making such claims contested. The painting is at the Belvedere in Vienna.

The mountain ridge landscape is rendered with attention to the characteristic profile of the Erzgebirge — a long, relatively flat-topped ridge rather than the dramatic peaks of higher ranges. Engelmüller uses a cool, grey-green palette appropriate to a partly forested mountain border landscape.