This late 19th-century oil painting by German artist Emma von Boeckh (fl.1877-1895) depicts a stormy landscape with a river, cattle and drover.Dense clouds partially obscure a late sun, which flickers upon a winding river. Cattle amble through the mud, barely illuminated. Trees merge into silhouettes. This is nature at its most atmospheric, where the elements blend into an immersive symphony of tonal splendour.The artist, Von Boeckh, was quite remarkable and, at this point in her career, predominantly self-taught. As a young woman, gaining a foothold in the art world was infinitely more challenging than it was for her male contemporaries. As such, it’s possible that she disguised her gender by exhibiting under simply “E von Boeckh”, perhaps to be taken more seriously by chauvinistic critics. In a review published in French artistic and literary journal, La Plume, she was referred to as a man.During our research, her gender only became apparent after discovering an article i...