Franz Xaver Petter Lot n° 2144

Franz Xaver Petter Still life with flowers, peaches and grapes Oil on wood (parquet). 80 x 60 cm. Provenance South German private collection. In the first half of the 19th century Vienna experienced a blossoming of flower painting, the origin of which is to be sought in the blossoming of the Viennese porcelain manufactory. The founding figure of this style of painting was Johann Baptist Drechsler, the son of a porcelain painter who worked at the Vienna Porcelain Manufactory in the late 18th century and became the first professor of flower painting at the Vienna Academy of Arts. One of his most able pupils was Franz Xaver Petter, like Drechsler the son of a porcelain painter. Petter studied at the Academy, first with Drechsler, later with his successor Sebastian Wegmayr. Petter's artistic career reflects the emancipation of flower painting from the decorative arts to the liberal arts: unlike his father, and also unlike Drechsler, Petter no longer painted on porcelain, succeeded as the leading flower painter of the Biedermeier period in Vienna and eventually became a professor at the Vienna Academy.