In 1869, following Courbet's suggestion, Leibl went to Paris, where he was introduced to
Édouard Manet, but was forced to return to Germany in 1870, due to the outbreak of the
Franco-Prussian War. In 1873 Leibl left Munich for the isolated
Bavarian countryside, where he depicted the local peasants in everyday scenes devoid of sentimentality or anecdote. The sketchlike quality of his earlier paintings was replaced by greater precision and attention to drawing. Living from 1878 to 1882 in Berbling, he painted perhaps his best-known work, the
Three Women in Church (Kunsthalle, Hamburg). Its intensely realistic style recalls
Hans Holbein in its clarity of definition. During the following years he moved to the town of
Bad Aibling and, in 1892, to
Kutterling, as his paintings united the disciplined drawing he had adopted in the 1880s with a new delicacy and luminosity. Leibl painted without preliminary drawing, setting to work directly with color, an approach that has parallels to
Impressionism. His commitment to the representation of reality as the eye sees it earned him recognition in his lifetime as the preeminent artist of a group known as the
Leibl-Kreis (Leibl Circle) that included, among others,
Carl Schuch,
Wilhelm Trübner,
Otto Scholderer, and
Hans Thoma. During the first half of the 1870s, Leibl executed a series of 19
etchings in a meticulous style. His charcoal drawings are conceived in great masses of light and shadow, blocked in as though he were using a brush and paint. He visited the Netherlands in 1898, and his work was included in the
Berlin Secession exhibition the following year. He died in
Würzburg in 1900. Image:Wilhelm Maria Hubertus Leibl 017.jpg|
Wilhelm Leibl and Sperl on the hunt, 1890–1895, oil on canvas,
Neue Pinakothek File:Leibl Selbstbildnis d Achtzehnjährigen.JPG|
Self-Portrait at the Age of Eighteen (1862) File:Wilhelm Maria Hubertus Leibl 001.jpg|
Girl with White Headscarf, c. 1876, oil on panel File:Wilhelm Maria Hubertus Leibl - In der Bauernstube.jpg|
In der Bauernstube, 1890, oil on panel File:Wilhelm Maria Hubertus Leibl 010.jpg|
Die Spinnerin, 1892 File:Johann Heinrich Pallenberg by Wilhelm Maria Hubertus Leibl 024.jpg|
Johann Heinrich Pallenberg, 1871 File:Wilhelm Leibl Standbildnis des Freiherrn von Perfall als Jäger.jpg|
Freiherr von Perfall als Jäger File:Wilhelm Maria Hubertus Leibl 022.jpg|
Portrait of Rosine Fischler, Gräfin Treuberg, 1878 File:Wilhelm Maria Hubertus Leibl 028.jpg|
Portrait of a Man, c. 1890 File:Wilhelm Leibl - Kopf eines Bauernmädchens.jpg|
Girl with Black Headscarf, 1879, oil on panel (detail) File:Wilhelm Leibl - Porträt des Tierarztes Dr. Reindl.jpg|
Veterinarian Dr. Reindl in the arbor, c. 1890 ==Nazi-looted art==