PESNE, Antoine

This portrait of the twenty-seven-year-old prince Frederick II moves from the real to the ideal, from the documentary to flattery. It was painted in 1739 when the prince acceded to the throne. Pesne politely foreshortened the prince’s great nose. For this portrait the new king of Prussia is suitably regal in velvet and ermine over armour, invested with the Order of the Black Eagle, which was founded by his grandfather Frederick I in 1701.

This half-length portrait of a girl with a straw hat on her head and holding two doves is considered by some critics to be a portrait of the artist’s daughter in the guise of a young rural woman.

One of the charming aspects of the first half of the eighteenth century French painting was the considerable number of portraits that now constitute a gallery of the notable figures of the day. Among the finest examples is the portrait of the engraver Jean Mariette by Antoine Pesne. The sitter is smiling wryly under his wig, his hand on an album of prints.

Jean Mariette (1660-1742) was the father of the famous print collector Pierre-Jean Mariette (1694-1774), a renowned connoisseur, especially of prints and drawings, and a chronicler of the careers of French Italian and Flemish artists. He was a central figure in the artistic culture of Paris for decades.

Marianne Cochois was the premi�re danseuse at the Berlin Opera since 1742. Frederick the Great found her equal to Terpsichore, muse of the Dance.

The painter was influenced by Lancret’s Camargo Dancing which was known at the Prussian court.

Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff was the architect of Schloss Sanssouci in Potsdam.

Huis Doorn is known as the last residence of the last German Kaiser, Wilhelm II. After the German defeat in World War I, Wilhelm flees to the neutral Netherlands and he lives on this estate in the Utrecht Hills from 1920 to 1941. In Doorn he surrounds himself with objects reminiscent of the past.

Princess Johanna Elisabeth (1712-1760) was the daughter of Prince Christian August of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp, Prince of Eutin and sister of King Adolf Frederick of Sweden. She married Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst (1690-1747). They had five children, one of them, Sophie Auguste Fredericka (1729-1796) later became Catherine II the Great, Empress of Russia.

Pesne was a French painter of portraits and historical subjects at the court of Prussia, contributing to the French influences at the court of Frederick II. He also painted portraits at many other francophile German courts.

Dance enlivens this portrait of the Italian ballerina Barbara Campanini, known as Barbarina. She left for Paris in 1739, and then went to London for a still more successful career. By 1744 she was a famous dancer in Venice, and Frederick the Great would invite her to dance at the opera from 1744 to 1748. This portrait from 1745 was originally installed just behind Frederick’s desk in his oval white and gold study at the Berlin Palace.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 4 minutes):

Gioacchino Rossini: La Danza