Eleonore Tcherning was tutored by her cousin, the flower painter Christine Løvmand (1803–1872), who ran a painting and drawing school. She thus started her artistic career as a flower painter, but quickly oriented herself towards the landscape painting; a genre, she among other things, excelled in copying other painters such as Jens Juel (1745–1802) and Fritz Petzholdt (1805–1838) and by painting in the open air. She beacme a dedicated plain air painter and one of the first Danish female artists in this genre. In addition, she had a close relationship with the circle around the artists J. Th. Lundbye (1818–1848), Thorald Læssøe (1816–1878) and P. C. Skovgaard (1817–1875), from whom she was also tutored as well as the art historian N. L. Høyen (1798–1870).

Tscherning made her debut at Charlottenborgs Forårsudstilling, but anonymously, and in the exhibition catalogue she is simply listed as “an unnamed lady”. From 1844 she exhibited under her own name. Together with Christine Løvmand and Hermania Neergaard (1799–1875), among other, she was also one of the first female artists to participate in the exhibition under her own name.

In 1845 she married her 22-year-old cousin, officer and politician A. F. Tscherning (1795–1874). He encouraged her to continue her artistic work, but his fame and busy work life meant that she had to raise the couple's five children and run the house alone, and so her work gradually decreased. However, she worked as a decorative painter at P. Ipsen's factory in the years around 1864–84, wrote stories and memoirs and even tought flower painting for a period. She also taught her children the art of drawing and painting, especially her daugthers Sara (1855–1916) and Anthonore (1849–1826) in flower painting and brought them on inspirational trips to France, Italy and Switzerland. Both daugthers became skilled flower painters, especially Anthonore, who today is known by her married name Anthonore Christensen, and whose works can also be found in this auction.

Provenance: Bruun Rasmussen auction 499, 1987 no. 312.