Lot 2121 Dα

This knee-length portrait depicts the later Landgrave Wilhelm IX of Hesse-Kassel (1743-1821), who became regent of the county of Hanau-Münzenberg in 1764, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel in 1785, and Prince Elector Wilhelm I of Hesse-Kassel in 1803. The Hessian regent wears the uniform of the first battalion of the “Erbprinz” infantry regiment of Hesse-Hanau. On his chest he wears the Hessian military order “ Pour la vertu militaire”, which he was awarded by Landgrave Friedrich II in 1769. He also wears the Danish Order of the Elephant on a blue ribbon around his neck, which he received upon his marriage to Wilhelmine Karoline of Denmark in 1764.

Anton Wilhelm Tischbein became court painter to Wilhelm IX in Hanau in 1769. He was made a member and teacher at the Hanau drawing academy in 1772. This work can be attributed to the artist due to its similarity to a half-length depiction of the Hanau Regent in the Historisches Museum Hanau dated to 1770. The present work was presumably painted at around the same time as the portrait of the hereditary prince as a general (Museum Schloss Fasanerie) which was painted on occasion of his services in the Prussian army against Austria during the Bavarian War of Succession.