(Heilbronn 1751–1818 Vienna)
Apollo amongst the Shepherds, a ‘study’ for the former Burgtheater, Vienna,
oil on canvas, 80.5 x 83.2 cm, framed

Provenance:
sale, Dorotheum, Vienna, 31 March 2009, lot 197

Literature:
K. Wilczek, Heinrich Friedrich Füger – Seine Gemälde und Zeichnungen, dissertation, Vienna 1925, p. 168;
Theatervorhänge für Wien und Hamburg, in: Weltkunst, 15 March 1967, pp. 826–831;
R. Keil, Heinrich Friedrich Füger 1751–1818, Vienna 2009, p. 292,
no. WV 294

We are grateful to Robert Keil for confirming the attribution of the present painting after inspection of the original.

The present painting is the prime coloured oil sketch for the curtain of the old Vienna Burgtheater. Completed in 1794, it served as the principal curtain for the old Burgtheater on Michaelerplatz until the building was demolished and it was then transferred in 1888 to Semper and Hasenauer’s new building, today’s Burgtheater, where it was used as a drop scene until 1940.

Starting in 1764, Heinrich Füger was trained in Ludwigsburg under Nicolas Guibal. He then went to Halle and eventually continued his education in Leipzig under Adam Friedrich Oeser, who already worked as a painter of theatre curtains. After extensive stays in Naples and Rome (1776–1783), where he mostly studied the art of Anton Raphael Mengs, Füger was appointed director of the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. He held the titles of court painter and professor and designed the curtains for the Kärntnertortheater in Vienna. Füger was successful in the two most prestigious genres, portraiture and history painting. His paintings are conserved, among other places, at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Vienna, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Hermitage, St. Petersburg, and the National Gallery, London.