Brief Biography-Johann Alexander Thiele, landscape painter and printer, was born in Erfurt, Germany. He was primarily self-taught but had instruction from the artist Christoph Ludwig Agricola. During his prime years, he became a painter in the courts of Arnstadt, Dresden, Kassel, Braunschweig, and the King of Poland. His works are especially famed for his landscapes along the river Elbe and mountain regions. Franz de Paula Ferg a painter of ruins and conversations, inserted staffage into his paintings in Dresden; he died in Dresden in 1752.