FERG, Franz de Paula - b. 1689 Wien, d. 1740 London - WGA

FERG, Franz de Paula

(b. 1689 Wien, d. 1740 London)

Austrian painter, draughtsman and printmaker. He studied landscape painting with his father, Adam Pankraz Ferg (1651-1729), and with Josef Orient (1677-1747) and staffage painting with Johann (Hans) Graf (1653-1710). He also studied the engravings of Jacques Callot and Sébastien Le Clerc the Elder. His early works show such subjects as harbours, markets and villages as wide vistas with many figures, trees and buildings, for example Fair with Temple and Maypole (Vienna, Belvedere). These scenes combine landscape and genre and are characteristic examples of early 18th-century Austrian panel painting, showing the influence of Dutch, Flemish and Italian models. The colours are dark, and the staffage figures in the manner of Graf are slender, with small heads and peculiarly wooden poses.

Classical Landscape

This painting is one of a pair of classical landscapes. Ferg painted many such pairs of pastoral scenes. The present painting shows a classical landscape with a family resting by the ruins, a boy struggling with an obstinate pack mule. Its companion piece depicts a classical landscape with a family resting by the ruins of a fountain, a man with a pack-donkey passing by.

A prolific artist, Ferg specialised as a painter of small-scale landscapes and genre scenes in the manner of the Dutch seventeenth-century masters, particularly Philips Wouwerman.

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Classical Landscape

This painting is one of a pair of classical landscapes. Ferg painted many such pairs of pastoral scenes. The present painting shows a classical landscape with a family resting by the ruins of a fountain, a man with a pack-donkey passing by. Its companion piece depicts a classical landscape with a family resting by the ruins, a boy struggling with an obstinate pack mule.

A prolific artist, Ferg specialised as a painter of small-scale landscapes and genre scenes in the manner of the Dutch seventeenth-century masters, particularly Philips Wouwerman.

Send Postcard Learn More