Paulus Constantijn la Fargue

Paulus Constantijn la Fargue, also Constantine Paul Lafargue, (The Hague, 5 January 1729 - 10 June 1782) was a Dutch painter, etcher and draftsman.

The sketches he made on site formed the source material on which he and his younger brothers Jacob Elias and Karel based their more elaborate paintings and drawings, sometimes after an interim of more than ten years.

His paintings which were relatively small in format and clearly influenced by seventeenth-century painters such as Jan van der Heyden are somewhat static, though his more spontaneous drawings show greater originality.

La Fargue's depictions are fairly reliable in a topographical sense, lively in colour and filled with charming little figures that create variety.

Even though this artist could count such people as the French and English ambassadors among his patrons at the beginning of his career, his life was not easy, and he, and his brothers and sister were continually troubled by financial problems.