Frederick the Great as Crown Prince
by PESNE, Antoine, Oil on canvas, 78 x 63 cm
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.