Joseph von Führich

Joseph von Führich (1800–1876) was an Austrian painter, born at Kratzau, now Chrastava, in Bohemia. He learned the basics in his father's workshop and in 1816 went to the Prague Academy to study under Joseph Bergler; Dürer's graphic work and Peter von Cornelius's illustrations to Goethe's Faust shaped his early work. In 1826 he went to Rome, where he added three frescoes from Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata to those by Cornelius and Overbeck in the Casino Massimo. An adherent of the Nazarene movement, he painted religious subjects almost exclusively, and his greatest reputation was as a draughtsman: his illustrated series, including the Prodigal Son and scenes from Tieck's Genofeva, became widely known. In 1841 he was made professor of composition at the Vienna Academy, and between 1854 and 1861 he painted a large cycle of murals in the Lerchenfeld church in Vienna, where he died. Here: Jacob Encountering Rachel with her Father's Herds.