Lot 1042 | Portrait of Louise Albertine Baroness von Grappendorf (1729-1753) as Flora

PESNE, ANTOINE
1683 Paris - 1757 Berlin

Title: Portrait of Louise Albertine Baroness von Grappendorf (1729-1753) as Flora.
Technique: Oil on canvas.
Mounting: Relined.
Measurement: 146 x 112cm.
Frame/Pedestal: Framed.

Literature:
E. Berckenhagen et al.: Antoine Pesne, Berlin 1958, p. 140, no. 136a with ill.

Provenance:
Art collection Schloß Demerthin, Brandenburg, since 1st half of the 19th C.;
1945 moved to Schönefeld:
Transfer to public ownership of the GDR within the course of the land reform;
Märkisches Museum, Berlin, since 1948;
Restituted to the family of the consignor in 1992, since then has remained on display as a loan in the Märkisches Museum.

"Schönste Seele im hübschesten Leibe" ("Most beautiful soul in the loveliest body") - is how contemporaries describe Louise Albertine von Grappendorf, born von Brandt, and everyone falls into deep mourning when she dies suddenly at the age of only 24 on 28.11.1753 on a trip to Schwedt.

Master of Hunting Wilhelm Hilmar von Grappendorf had chosen Louise Albertine as his second wife. With her youth and beauty, she brought glamour and grace to the court of Princess Luise Amalie of Prussia and Queen Mother Sophie Dorothea, the mother of Frederick II, in the first half of the 18th century.
It is probably from this period that the Prussian court painter Antoine Pesne was commissioned to paint Freifrau von Grappendorf.

Antoine Pesne chose to depict the pretty young woman as the goddess of flowers and youth. In doing so, he follows the tradition of famous artists such as Rembrandt or Titian, who also depicted the goddess Flora as a young girl surrounded by flowers.

However, the artist chooses an equally divine and suggestively slightly frivolous depiction of the young lady as Flora. He places her as a three-quarter figure light as a feather on clouds and dresses her in a precious, lace-trimmed, blue Atlas robe, which - framed by a diagonally guided flower sash - allows her left breast to flash out at her lush décolleté. Her radiantly beautiful face fixes the viewer with a friendly, almost conspiratorial gaze; she smiles so gracefully that small dimples form on her cheeks.

Pesne has Louise Albertine von Grappendorf scatter flowers with her hands, assisted by a little putto who floats towards her with butterfly wings and brings her a bouquet of flowers.

With his numerous portraits of the royal Prussian family and members of their court, Antoine Pesne is one of the most famous painters of his time. The officially commissioned works follow the high expectations of the royal court painter. Our enchanting portrait of Louise Albertine von Grappendorf, on the other hand, already speaks to the gallant, more intimate pictorial language of the Rococo, which Antoine Pesne chose at the end of his artistic career for very close and familiar depictions of people.