ATTRIBUTED TO ANTON-RAPHAEL MENGS, circa 1750

細節

ATTRIBUTED TO ANTON-RAPHAEL MENGS, circa 1750

Maria-Antonia-Walpurgis, Hereditary Princess of Saxony, with powdered short curly hair, wearing a pale-green satin dress with pink lining and jewelled and pearl-set clasps, an ermine-bordered blue velvet cloak draped around her shoulders; decorated with the badge of the Starry Cross Order and the breast-star of the Imperial Russian Order of St-Catherine; cloud and sky background; on vellum, oval -- 58 mm high, turned dark horn frame surmounted by a scroll of gilt-metal-mounted rubies and pearls

拍品專文

Maria-Antonia-Walpurgis (Munich 1724-1780 Dresden) was the daughter of Elector Charles-Albrecht of Bavaria (as Charles VII Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire) and his wife Maria-Amalia of Habsburg. In 1747, she married the Saxon Hereditary Prince Frederick-Christian who succeeded his father Frederick-Augustus in 1763 but died in December of the same year after a reign of only six weeks. Maria-Antonia-Walpurgis was an important sponsor of the arts, and an accomplished composer, singer, poet and painter herself.

The outstanding quality of the present miniature justifies the attribution to Anton-Raphael Mengs who painted the princess several times. A similar large oil painting by Mengs, of 1751, is illustrated in the exhibition catalogue Königliches Dresden, Munich, Hypo-Kulturstiftung, November 1990 - March 1991, nr 28.