Heinrich Friedrich Füger

The artist's estate, after his death, by 1818, no. 5;

Private collection, Vienna, by 1928;

Anonymous sale, Vienna, Dorotheum, 11 November 1980, lot 303;

Where acquired by the present collector.

J. von Hormayr (ed.), Archiv für Geographie, Historie, Staats- und Kriegskunst, Vienna, 30 April 1821, issue 52, pp. 207–08;

K. Wilczek, Heinrich Friedrich Füger - Seine Gemälde und Zeichnungen, dissertation, Vienna 1925, p. 173, no. 154;

K. Wilczek, ‘Fügers künstlerischer Entwicklungsgang' in Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, Vienna 1928, vol. II, p. 352, fig. 376, reproduced p. 353;

R. Keil, Heinrich Friedrich Füger, Nur wenigen ist es vergönnt, das Licht der Wahrheit zu sehen, Vienna 2009, p. 397, no. 603, reproduced p. 397.

Vienna, Academy of Fine Arts, 1820, no. 5.

The theme of this painting derives from a poem written by Christoph Martin Wieland in 1769, entitled Die Grazien, in which the Three Graces have found the sleeping Cupid and carry him in a basket of flowers to their parents. The pendant to this painting, of the same date, can be found in the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich, and depicts the moment in which the Three Graces discover the sleeping Cupid.¹ The studies for both these works were offered at auction in Vienna in 1916.²

Heinrich Friedrich Füger (1751–1818) was a prominent figure in the evolution of Classicism within art. Initially influenced by Adam Friedrich Oeser in Leipzig, Füger would develop his skills during a formative period in Italy between 1776 and 1783. It was during this time he encountered the works of influential artists such as Anton Rafael Mengs, Angelica Kauffmann and Jacques-Louis David, whose contributions significantly influenced the trajectory of neoclassical aesthetics. Füger went on to become the director of the Austrian Academy, and later, in 1806, the director of the Imperial Collection in Vienna. 

¹ Friedrich Heinrich Füger, Die drei Grazien finden Amor, 1816, oil on canvas, 48 x 59 cm., Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich, no. 1644.

² Anonymous sale, Vienna, Wawra, 6 December 1916, lot 47.