Lot 2054 D α

According to tradition, these youthful hunters are the three sons of Elector Johann Friedrich of Saxony (1503-1554), the later Dukes of Thuringia: Johann Friedrich II in the middle son (1529-1595), Johann Wilhelm I (1530-1573) and Johann Friedrich III the younger (1538-1565). Elector Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg is said to have given the painting to the Duke of Saxe-Altenburg in 1655 for the hunting room of the castle "Zur Fröhlichen Wiederkunft". The painting remained in this castle near Wolfersdorf in Thuringia until 1951, when it was sold by Ernst II (1875-1954), the last Duke of Saxe-Altenburg. The hunting lodge was built in the mid-16th century by order of Elector Johann Friedrich of Saxony.



The name Honthorst is traditionally associated with the group portrait of the three young dukes and the name of Elector Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg, who is said to have given the painting to the Duke of Saxe-Altenburg in 1655. The Dutch painter Willem van Honthorst went to Berlin in 1646, where he was appointed court painter to Frederick William of Brandenburg and his wife Luise Henriette of Orange in early 1647. He remained in the elector's service for seventeen years and did not return to Utrecht until 1664. Several historicising portraits by Honthorst have survived, including a group portrait to be dated 1662-66 showing four generations of Princes of Orange (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv./cat. no. 1855). Stylistically closely related is also a 1666 double portrait of Princes Karl Emil of Brandenburg and Friedrich I of Prussia with hunting dogs and game (Fries Museum, Leeuwarden, inv./cat. no. 32). The attribution of the present group portrait to Willem von Honthorst is more than likely from a historical as well as art historical perspective.