Still Life with a Vase of Flowers

A Vienna porcelain plaque painted with a polychrome still life by J. Nigg The decoration features a marble ledge upon which stands a vase of flowers with a green and black butterfly fluttering to the front and in the lower left, a caterpillar dangles off a silk thread from a white bloom. Ants crawl upon a red bloom at the centre while a dragonfly hovers on the extreme left. There are numerous different blooms including roses, irises and primroses. The plaque is finished with a leaf-moulded gilt bronze frame.

Josef Nigg (1782-1863), the father of the painter Alois Nigg, studied under Johann Drechsler at the Academy in Vienna. From 1800 to 1843 he was employed as a flower painter at Vienna's porcelain factory, and from 1835 he also taught painting there. A large painting of flowers on a porcelain plaque thirty inches in height, was presented by Nigg on behalf of the Viennese factory, at the Great Exhibition of 1851.