Charles-Amédée-Philippe van Loo - Portrait of King Frederick II of Prussia - image-1
Charles-Amédée-Philippe van Loo - Portrait of King Frederick II of Prussia - image-2
Charles-Amédée-Philippe van Loo - Portrait of King Frederick II of Prussia - image-1Charles-Amédée-Philippe van Loo - Portrait of King Frederick II of Prussia - image-2

Lot 31 Dα

Charles-Amédée-Philippe van Loo - Portrait of King Frederick II of Prussia

Auction 1105 - overview Berlin
21.04.2018, 11:00 - Prussia I
Estimate: 80.000 € - 100.000 €
Result: 99.200 € (incl. premium)

Charles-Amédée-Philippe van Loo

Portrait of King Frederick II of Prussia

Oil on canvas (relined). 80 x 65.5 cm.
Signed and dated lower left: L´original a été fait d´aupres le Roy, par Amadée van Loo. Anno 1766..

The French painter Charles Amédée van Loo was summoned to the court at Berlin in 1748. In the following years he carried out numerous decorative commissions for the palaces of Frederick II. Following a period of leave in Paris that began in 1758, he returned to Berlin in 1763 and remained there until 1769. Van Loo painted two portraits of the King during this second Berlin period. One representative full-figure portrait, which has been in the royal collection in London since 1816, and the present, more intimate, work concentrating on the royal sitter's features. The carved stone oak leaf frame is one of van Loo's characteristic motifs.

Frederick the Great is depicted here aged 54. By the end of the Seven Years' War, Prussia had risen to become the 5th great power in Europe and the King could look back with confidence and pride on an impressive life's work. This is the message conveyed in the London work. The present work depicts the King in a simple plain uniform devoid of all representative decorations apart from the Prussian Order. He appears slightly melancholy, with pursed lips, eyes gazing out into the distance, and slightly receding grey hair. The work is not meant to depict a sovereign, but a private man, and its first owner is thought to have been the King's brother, Prince Henry of Prussia.

Provenance

Radensleben Palace / Mark. - Presumably in the ownership of Prince Henry of Prussia. - Siegfried von Quast Radesnleben - German private collection. - Lempertz auction 12.12.1991, lot 103. - Private collection, Rhineland.

Literature

Theodor Fontane: Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg, Munich/Vienna 1977, p. 50. - Thieme-Becker: Künstlerlexikon.