Classical Landscape
by FERG, Franz de Paula, Oil on copper, 22 x 18 cm
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.