Franz Xaver Petter Biography

born  23. 10. 1791 Vienna,
died  11. 5. 1866 ebenda

Franz Xaver Petter was an Austrian painter specialized in Still Life painting.
— The tradition of painting detailed, carefully observed arrangements of flowers began in seventeenth century Holland, but remained popular and continues to be practiced in our own time. The still life is an ideal subject matter for the artist to display both his or her talent in describing different textures, as well as an individual sense of order and harmony.

 Franz Xaver Petter studied at the Viennese academy with J. B. Drechsler and S. Wegmayr; starting from 1832 academy professor in Vienna, popular flowers -, fruit and quiet life painters of the Viennese of aristocracy and middle class.

In nineteenth century Vienna, the still life was a standard subject at the Academy of Arts and was a favored subject with the Imperial Court, which collected examples by the Dutch masters and by local Viennese painters. Among these artists, Franz Petter distinguished himself as a disciplined and sensitive creator of still life paintings. Petter painted large opulent still life paintings for Viennese homes which provided Franz Xaver Petter with a regular income; but it was his small-scale studies of flowers and fruit that established his lasting reputation for their meticulous craftsmanship, compositional clarity, and sense of simplicity and intimacy.  .
He died on 11 May 1866.