Franz de Paula Ferg

1689 – 1740

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.

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