Lot 383 Dα

Antoine Pesne and his workshop produced numerous portraits of Frederick II, both during his time as Crown Prince and following his coronation in 1740. Pesne developed this portrait type around the time of Frederick's ascent to the throne. It shows the King in half-length, facing left, and with a tricorn (cf. Berckenhagen, du Colombier, Kühn and Poensgen: Antoine Pesne, Berlin 1958, p. 132, no. 115m; replicas found in the Niedersächsischen Landesmuseum Hannover et. al.) Our portrait may have been inspired by an engraving by Johann Georg Wille after Pesne, which shows the young king in a similar stone frame with the same inscription. This, as well as the fact that the ermine cloak is blue instead of red, could indicate that the piece was painted outside of Prussia.
We would like to thank Professor Helmut Börsch-Supan in Berlin for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.