The present painting is an important addition to the known autograph versions of this famous image of the Elector of Saxony. Remarking on the exceptional technical quality of this work, Dr. Röttgen notes its close relationship to the pastel of Frederick Christian in the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden, which may be the prototype for this image, and possibly was drawn from life. Of exactly the same size, the present work could have been the artist's first painted version rather than a later reduction of the better known three-quarter length painting which is still in the possession of the heirs of the Elector of Saxony. Mengs achieved with this his first state portrait, together with its companion of the sitter's wife Maria Antonia, thus establishing a new fashion in court portraiture. The first portrait executed in his new position as Principal Court Painter in Dresden when he was still only 22 years old, it displays a marked change from the approach of the previous court painter, Louis de Silvestre. The French high baroque was certainly a source, and Mengs may have looked to Largillìere's portrait of Augustus III, painted in Paris in 1715 (now in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne) in establishing this new format. There was a great demand for replicas of official portraits of the ruler and his family, and there are a number of autograph versions of this work, as well as some which display workshop participation. These include that in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremburg, and another in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden, which both Dr. Röttgen and Dieter Honisch consider to be a copy.

Though of rather poor constitution, Friedrich Christian is depicted by Mengs as a man in robust good health. In some of the other versions he wears medals and sashes, heraldic attributes of his rank although in the present work only the star of the Polish Order of the White Eagle, fastened to his cloak by a magnificent diamond clasp, is visible.

The present work will be included in Dr. Steffi Röttgen's forthcoming monograph on the artist.