A painter of bucolic landscapes and genre subjects, Herman Hartwich (1853-1926) was born in New York City, studied in Munich from 1881 to 1885, and was also in Paris, where he exhibited at the Paris Salon six times, winning a prize in 1892. He returned to New York in 1894, where he exhibited in the National Academy exhibitions. Girl with Cat is a fine early genre scene, produced during Hartwich's studies at the Royal Academy, Munich