Figures near a mausoleum
1733
oil
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
1733
oil
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
Dominant colour
Figures near a mausoleum is a 1733 oil by Franz de Paula Ferg, a Baroque work, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.
This painting shows fancy ruins and tombs in a misty park. A few people walk past, barely more than blurs. One leans on a stone slab under a tree. Ferg painted this in London after moving from Austria. He mixed real places with made-up ones—common then, now it feels dreamy. Next look up the Victoria and Albert Museum to see more like it.
Franz de Paula Ferg’s painting depicts an Italianate landscape centered on a large stone mausoleum, its structure crowned by a sphinx sculpture. Figures in rural Italian attire are shown either riding past on horses or resting at the mausoleum’s base. The work reflects Ferg’s synthesis of Dutch, Flemish, and Italian influences, executed in a subdued palette typical of his early 18th-century capricci. Bequeathed by Henry L. Florence in 1916, the painting exemplifies the period’s blending of landscape and genre themes within Austrian art.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Franz de Paula Ferg (2 May 1689 – 1740), also known as Francis Paul Ferg, was an Austrian painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. He painted primarily scenes of daily life, such as people interacting in markets and villages.
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