HENRY FERGUSON (1665-1730)

WOMEN WITH A FRUIT BASKET TO ANCIENT ARCHITECTURAL FRAGMENTS AND A SARCOPHAGUS, WITH WASHERWOMEN AND THE PILLAR OF SALT TO THE BACKGROUND
Bears a wax seal to reverse of panel
Oil on panel
42 x 61.5 cm
 
PROVENANCE
Private Collection, France
 
 
 
 
Henry Ferguson, or ‘Vergazon’, was probably the son of William Gouw Ferguson, an artist who spent most of his career in the Netherlands, having been admitted to the Guild of St Luke in Utrecht in 1648. A migratory artist like William, Henry was one of several Anglo-Dutch artists working in late seventeenth-century London where, among other things, he painted backgrounds for Sir Godfrey Kneller's portraits. Ferguson later travelled to Toulouse, in the company of Adriaen van der Kabel, and settled in the French city for the remainder of his career. The younger Ferguson was best known for his atmospheric capricci of architectural ruins, often with fragments of monumental sculpture dwarfing smaller figures. Further similar examples of Ferguson's works can be found in the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh and Ham House, Somerset.