Franz de Paula Ferg (Vienna 1689-1740 London)

Ferg studied painting under his father, the landscapist Adam Pankraz Ferg (1651–1729), and later learned staffage painting under Johann (Hans) Graf (1653–1710). Combining landscape and genre painting, his small-scale, highly detailed works are characteristic examples early eighteenth century Austrian painting. Often suffused with warm light, Ferg’s early oeuvre was influence by the Italianate landscapes popularised in the Netherlands during the seventeenth century by painters like Nicolaes Berchem and Karel du Jardin who were themselves indebted to the influence of Italy. The painter also took much inspiration from the printmaker, Jacques Callot (c. 1592-1635) whose etchings of contemporary figures from soldiers to beggars, can easily be recognised in the staffage of many of Ferg’s pictures. This relationship is particularly evident in the figures of the Commedia dell’Arte performance in the first of these pictures and of which Callot produced a series of such figures derived from his time in Florence.