Frederick II (1720-1785), Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel (1760-1785), three-quarter length, with the Hessian Order Pour la Veru Militaire and the English order of the Garter

Tischbein painted a number of state portraits of Frederick II in this pose, with his baton resting on a ledge, sometimes showing him in an interior and other times in a garden outside (see A.-C. Flohr, Johan Heinrich Tischbein I (1722-1789), als Porträtmaler: mit einem kritischen Werkverzeichnis, Munich, 1997, pp. 69, 178-179). The present work most closely resembles a painting in the Universitätsmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Marburg (inv. no. 957), although the still-life elements on the table at lower left are different. When this work last appeared at auction in 2013, Dr. Marianne Heinz confirmed the work to be autograph on the basis of first-hand inspection and proposed a date of circa 1770-75 (loc. cit.).