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Antique Frederick the Great Portrait Oil Painting After Pesne, 18th-19th C.

Antique Frederick the Great Portrait Oil Painting After Pesne, 18th-19th C.

$2,400.00 USD
$2,400.00 USD
Sale Sold out
About This Piece

Portrait of a young man in a powdered wig, red mantle thrown over an ermine wrap with armor beneath, is Frederick II of Prussia, Frederick the Great, in the crown-prince guise his court painter Antoine Pesne made famous around 1739. Pesne's image was copied over and over through the 18th and 19th centuries, and this is one of those hand-painted copies after the type. The paint carries a dense, aged craquelure across the whole surface, the dark ground broken by losses that give it real presence. It came to me in a carved and gilded frame that suits the period feeling of the picture.

Details
Artist
After Antoine Pesne
Notes
One of the many period copies after Antoine Pesne's portrait type of Frederick the Great. The sitter is Frederick II of Prussia, 1712 to 1786, shown as a young man. Pesne was the Prussian court painter who created the original image around 1739, and it was copied widely in the century that followed. The hand of this copyist is unidentified.
Signature
None found on the canvas. A script inscription reading approximately "Corini" and a handwritten number appear on the back of the frame, not on the painting.
Medium
Oil on canvas
Subject
Frederick the Great of Prussia as a young man, half length, in a powdered wig, red mantle over ermine, armor beneath
Origin
Continental European
Age
Antique, 18th to 19th century
Canvas Size
20.25 in. W x 25 in. H
Frame Size
27.5 in. W x 32.75 in. H
Format
Vertical half-length portrait
Frame
Carved and gilded frame with egg and dart, bead, wave scroll, and lotus bud registers. Losses to the gilding and a corner separation at the upper left.
School or Movement
Rococo court portraiture, after the Pesne type. Antoine Pesne, 1683 to 1757, was a Paris-born painter who spent most of his career as court painter in Berlin, where he became the principal image-maker of the Prussian crown. His portrait of Frederick the Great became the official likeness, and hand-painted copies of it circulated across Europe for generations, much the way a widely distributed state portrait would. This painting belongs to that copyist tradition rather than to Pesne's own hand.
Support
Relined onto a later keyed pine stretcher. The relining has stabilized the canvas.
Condition

The painting shows dense, even craquelure across the entire surface, consistent with an aged oil film. There is paint loss and abrasion through the dark background, heaviest at the upper left, to the right of the head, and in the lower quadrants, along with scattered flake loss in the drapery. The varnish is discolored and there is surface grime overall. The canvas has been relined onto a later keyed pine stretcher, which has stabilized it. The original reverse, and any labels, stamps, or inscriptions it may have carried, is no longer accessible as a result of the lining. I have not had the surface examined under laboratory conditions, so I am describing only what is visible in hand and in the photographs.

The frame is carved and gilded, with losses to the gilding and a separation at the upper left corner. It is included with the painting.

#213

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