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Still life with grapes in a porcelain dish

(c. 1850 Austria)

Colnaghi



Artist(s): JOSEPH NIGG (1782-1863)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Signed: Signed lower right: Nigg
Dimensions: 47.50cm wide   38.00cm high (18.70 inches wide  14.96 inches high)
Description:

This meticulously executed still life of grapes was painted by one of the leading Biedermeier flower and fruit painters, particularly famous in the nineteenth century for his paintings on porcelain.

Joseph Nigg was born in 1782 in Vienna, Austria. Having studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna under Johann Baptist Drechsler, Nigg began working in a Viennese porcelain factory as a flower painter. Nigg continued to work there over the next forty years, also holding painting classes. With the advent of the Biedermeier era, flower painting became immensely fashionable and examples could be found on large porcelain plaques. A piece of this sort, approximately 30 cm. in height, was presented by Nigg on behalf of the Viennese porcelain factory at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London. In addition to being a porcelain painter, Nigg was also known for working in pastel, watercolour and oil. Joseph Nigg died in Vienna in 1863, survived by his son, the painter Alois Nigg. Paintings by him can be found in museums in Vienna (Museum fűr Kunst und Industrie), Milan (Brera), Salzburg (Museum Carolino-Augusteum) and St Petersburg (Hermitage).