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The first entry in the inventory book of the Städtisches Museum Elberfeld is the painting 'Dogs at the edge of the forest' by the French painter Olivier de Penne. It bears the inventory number G (for Gemälde (painting)) 1 and was donated by August von der Heydt in 1897, five years before the museum was actually founded.

The painting shows two hunting dogs in the foreground at the edge of a wood. A third dog can be seen in the background, slightly lower down, drawing the viewer's attention to the open field that opens up in the left-hand third of the picture. In the background, some buildings can be seen, behind which another dense forest stretches out.

Olivier de Penne became famous for his realistic depictions of animals and hunting scenes. His landscape paintings are close to the ideals of the Barbizon School. The group of Barbizon painters, named after a village in the forest of Fontainebleau near Paris, turned away from academic teaching in the 19th century in favour of open-air painting. Its members were the forerunners of Impressionism.

From the outset, landscape painting was a focal point of the museum's collection, especially 19th-century French and German landscape painting. Today, the Von der Heydt Museum owns extensive collections of paintings in this genre from various centuries. A selection of special highlights can currently be seen in the collection presentation 'Times and Spaces' on the first floor of the museum.