François Ferrière, Swiss 1752-1839- A river landscape with a bridge, figures and animals; oil on canvas, signed (lower left), with two illegible inscriptions (on the stretcher bars), 33 x 44.7 cm. Provenance: Private Collection, UK. Note: Born in...

François Ferrière, Swiss 1752-1839- A river landscape with a bridge, figures and animals; oil on canvas, signed (lower left), with two illegible inscriptions (on the stretcher bars), 33 x 44.7 cm. Provenance: Private Collection, UK. Note: Born in Geneva, Ferrière probably trained under Jean-Étienne Liotard, before moving to Paris to study at the Académie des Beaux-Arts under Joseph-Marie Vien. With the outbreak of the French Revolution and the ensuing unrest in Switzerland, Ferrière and his family then emigrated to England, where he began specialising in miniature painting, exhibiting frequently at the Royal Academy from 1793. After a period in Russia, he returned to London, and then again to Geneva, where he once more became a prominent artistic figure and member of the Société des Arts. As he is perhaps best-known as a miniaturist, paintings by Ferrière are uncommon in the artist’s surviving oeuvre. The present landscape is therefore a rare example that demonstrates the artist’s remarkably lucid and refined technique in oil.