Portrait of King Frederick William II of Prussia (1744-1797), three-quarter-length, in uniform with the sash and star of the Prussian Order of the Black Eagle, his left hand resting on a map of Frankfurt, a landscape with the Prussian army encamped outside Frankfurt beyond

This is presumably the prime version of Frisch's portrait of Frederick William II; a reduced copy by the artist, dated 1797, was formerly in the Hohenzollernmuseum at Schloss Montbijou, Berlin (Zerstört Entführt Verschollen; Die Verluste der preußischen Schlösser im Zweiten Weltkrieg, Potsdam, 2004, p. 179, inv. no. GK I 2915).

In October 1792, during the War of the First Coalition, Frankfurt was captured by the French in the wake of the Prussian retreat from Valmy. That December, however, it was retaken in a counter-attack by the Prussian army directed by the Duke of Brunswick, but at that point commanded in person by King Frederick William, and it is presumably this moment that is depicted here. Prussian military successes were only occasional in the early years of the Revolutionary Wars and the King was rightly perceived as lacking military qualities; the present work, commemorating the monarch's personal presence at this Prussian victory, may well therefore have been intended to strengthen Frederick William's prestige during the war.

We are grateful to Dr Christoph Martin Vogtherr of the Stiftung Preußische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg for identifying the artist and for noting the existense of the Hohenzollern version. We are also grateful to Dr. Gerd Bartoshek of the Bildergalerie Park Sansouci, Potsdam, for identifying the view.