Lot 1601 Dα

This portrait of the later Prince of Wales (1707-1751) owes its charm not only to the contrast between the innocence of the young child - who joyfully presents his toy bird to the beholder - and his magnificent clothing, with the feathered hat showing him to belong to the highest rank of aristocracy, but also to the particularly fine quality of its painting. Friedrich Ludwig's personal coat of arms - the Greek Cross with the sun - is embroidered on his elegant blue silk jacket.
When his grandfather Elector Georg Ludwig and his court moved to London as King Georg I in 1714, the seven-year-old Friedrich Ludwig had to stay behind with his uncle Ernst August II of Hanover. As a child he was the centre of the Hanover court and did not see his parents and siblings again until 1728, when his father George II brought the little Prince of Wales to London following his accession to power. The father-son relationship always remained tense. Friedrich Ludwig married Auguste of Saxony-Gotha in 1736, a marriage that resulted in nine children. After his untimely death in 1751, probably due to pneumonia, all hope for the return of a Hanoverian ruler to the Kingdom was lost. In England, "Prince Frederick" was remembered as a patron of the arts.


.