His nickname "Pferde-Krüger" (Horse Krüger) seems to take some getting used to, even a little disrespectful, but it still classifies the work of the Saxon painter Franz Krüger reasonably well. Portraits of horses were, to use a play on words, his hobby-horse. Whether in hunting and military paintings or in portraits, very often the hoofed animal so revered by the people can be found as a motif. To dismiss him as a pure horse painter, however, is of course fundamentally wrong.
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Franz Krüger came into contact with animal painting as a child; his interest was awakened by his friend, the ornithologist Johann Friedrich Naumann. Later, during his school days in Dessau, the son of a civil servant found contact with the landscape painter Carl Wilhelm Kolbe, who introduced him to nature as a central artistic theme. At the age of fifteen he enrolled at the Berlin Academy of Arts, but only stayed there for two years. Afterwards he developed his style autodidactically. It was from this period that he got his nickname, as he devoted himself almost exclusively to the representation of animals during this phase. After a number of successful exhibitions, he expanded his spectrum to include portraits. His portraits of prominent contemporaries and important noblemen considerably increased his fame. Already at the age of twenty-eight he was appointed royal professor and became a full member of the Berlin Academy. Among his students were such famous artists as Hermann Gemmel, Karl Konstantin Heinrich Steffeck and Theodor Schloepke. He was also granted the fortune, rather rare for painters, to become wealthy through his work. Thus he could afford to move into a large house in Berlin, where his life now centered. However, he travelled a great deal in order to further his artistic education; among other things, his path took him all over Germany and to France or Russia.
Although Franz Krüger is mainly regarded as a commissioned artist - and saw himself as such - he always succeeded in giving his works their own character. Not only are his works characterized by a high degree of accuracy, lifelike sharpness and attention to detail, they also contain a good deal of subtle humor and sometimes irony as well as quiet social criticism, which means that they are not just pure documentation. In his pictures of military parades, for example, he did not place state leaders or glorious generals at the centre of the action, but rather the citizens or the common people, which can certainly be seen as a softening of traditional hierarchical structures. In this respect, the term "Biedermeier painter", with which Franz Krüger is often referred to, is just as abridged and even misleading as the "horse Krüger". In terms of time, he may belong to the Biedermeier era and his motifs also fit into this bourgeois era, but his works are not really conservative - and certainly not dowdy. It is also worth mentioning that he was one of the first visual artists to use the technique of lithography in their works.
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.jpg "Wilhelm Christian Benecke von Groditzberg, 1828 by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Riding Out to Hunt by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Portrait of Emperor Nicholas I, 1796-1855, 1847 by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Ride of Prince Wilhelm Accompanied by the Artist by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Paul and Amalie Taglioni by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Portrait of Prince Nikolai Saltykov in Fancy Dress, 1850 by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Parade on the Opera Square in Berlin by Franz Krüger")
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_peintre_et_architecte_prussien_-_-_(MeisterDrucke-995095).jpg "Portrait of Karl Friedrich Schinkel by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Equestrian Portrait of Grand Prince Alexander Nikolayevich by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Prince Alexander Sergeyevich Menshikov by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "The Russian Guard in Tsarskoye Selo in 1832 by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "The Tent in Klein-Glienicke Park, around 1840, Franz Krüger by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Portrait of the imperial personal physician Nicholas Martin Arendt 1785-1859, 1836 by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Parade on the Opernplatz in Berlin (detail) by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Portrait of Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna Charlotte of Prussia, in Kokoshnik by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "The Imperial Russian Guard in Tsarskoye Selo in 1832, 1841 by Franz Krüger")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1320365).jpg "Portrait of Field Marshal Count Ludwig Adolf Peter of Sayn Wittgenstein (1769-1843) by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Nicholas I with His Officers, 1835 by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Portrait of Queen Frederica of Hanover, 1778-1841, 19th Century by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Portrait of General von Zieten by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Parade on Opernplatz by Franz Krüger")
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_marechal_et_homme_politique_russe_Peintu_-_(MeisterDrucke-1323510).jpg "Portrait of Pyotr Volkonsky by Franz Krüger")
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_1822_-_(MeisterDrucke-1021882).jpg "Military Parade Opera Square in Berlin by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Portrait of Karl Friedrich Schinkel by Franz Krüger")
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_ec_all_-_(MeisterDrucke-1030003).jpg "Parade in Potsdam by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Rose in Glass by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Parade on Opernplatz by Franz Krüger")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1014488).jpg "Portrait of Frederick William III of Prussia by Franz Kruger by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Parade at the Opera Place, Berlin (detail) by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Portrait of Prince Pyotr Volkonsky 1776-1852 by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "The Groom by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Nicholas I, 1852 by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Tsar Nicholas I on Horseback with Companions by Franz Krüger")
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_(Portrait_o_-_(MeisterDrucke-1323248).jpg "Portrait of Queen Frederica of Hanover by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Prince Wilhelm Riding Out in the Company of the Artist by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Tsar Nicholas I of Russia with Tsarevich Alexander and His Retinue by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Parade on Opernplatz by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Parade on Opernplatz by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Krugers Dogs by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Portrait of Count Alexander von Benckendorff by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Two Horsemen Galloping by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Portrait of Prince Nikolai Saltykov in Fancy Dress by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Portrait of Emperor Nicholas I by Franz Krüger")
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 - (MeisterDrucke-662933).jpg "Prince Augustus of Prussia (1779-1843) by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "In a Stable by Franz Krüger")
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_et_limperatrice_Alexandra_Fedorovna_(nee_Charlot_-_(MeisterDrucke-1318208).jpg "Emperor Nicholas I and Empress Alexandra Fedorovna by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Running Dog by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Cossack on Horseback by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Portrait of Count Alexey Fyodorovich Orlov by Franz Krüger")
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_-_(MeisterDrucke-1313741).jpg "Cossack on Horseback by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Hommage to Friedrich Wilhelm IV in Front of the Berlin City Palace by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Portrait of Frederick William IV of Prussia by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Portrait of Prince Alexey Fyodorovich Orlov by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Portrait of Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Friedrich Wilhelm IV, c.1850 by Franz Krüger")
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_Parade_on_-_(MeisterDrucke-1560274).jpg "Parade on the Opernplatz in Berlin in 1822 (detail) by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Before Christmas by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Pre-Christmas by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Portrait of Empress Alexandra Fedorovna (née Charlotte of Prussia) by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Count Pavel Dmitrievich Kiselyov by Franz Krüger")
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.jpg "Parade on Opernplatz by Franz Krüger")
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