So I was googling for images of Fredersdorf for "We didn't start the fire" yesterday, and I found this blog post.
To summarize, there's a painting of Some Eighteenth-Century Dude in a museum in New York. It's always been identified as an American revolutionary named Samuel Fraunces. But then a scholar at the University of Göttingen, Dr. Kuhle, found a nearly identical portrait in Dresden, that really obviously depicts the same person. That made it less likely that the New York portrait depicted an American, and the museum stopped labeling it as Samuel Fraunces.
Meanwhile,
Dr. Kuhle believes the subject is a member of Frederick's most intimate inner circle of male friends who lived with him at his palace in Rheinsberg. In Frederick's early years he commissioned a portrait cycle of these intimate friends; four portraits are known and are part of the collection of the Museum Huis Doorn in The Netherlands today. They include Dietrich von Keyserlingk, Charles Etienne Jordan, Isaak Franz Egmont von Chasot and Ernst Heinrich August de la Motte Fouqué. But it is well documented that Frederick had six intimates at the time, including Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf (1708-1758) and Francesco Algarotti (1712-1764). Both of these men are missing from the cycle, but are the subject of other works by Pensne and Jean-Etienne Liotard that that bear a resemblance to the Fraunces Tavern Museum and Staatliche Kunstsammlungen paintings.
Now, right away we've got some problems here.
1. The traditional list of 6 is Keyserlingk, Jordan, Wartensleben, Hacke, Fredersdorf, and Eichel. There's only partial overlap between that list and Keyserlingk, Jordan, Chasot, Fouqué, Fredersdorf, and Algarotti.
2. Fritz had a lot more than 6 intimates at Rheinsberg (!).
3. Algarotti only by a real stretch could be called "an intimate at Rheinsberg"; he passed through for a few days once. He certainly never lived there.
4. Fouque and Keyserlingk also never lived there, although since they visited a lot, I'll allow it.
5. The article says art conservators determined that it was painted between the late 18th and early 19th centuries. On the other hand, it could be a copy (the wig does look more 1750s than 1790s to me).
Then there's the compare-and-contrast of the 2 not!Fraunces with the 2 Fredersdorf paintings.
1. Is it just me, or does not!Fraunces look older than both Fredersdorfs? And I know paintings aren't photographs, and artists differed in how much they prettified, but if these two were painted at or shortly after Rheinsberg days, he should look younger.
2. The face looks less round to me (aka how I can tell Katte and Catt apart when historians confuse them), but then the other Fredersdorf painting looks somewhere in between.
3. The eyebrows are thick and dark in the one Fredersdorf painting, thin and dark in the other Fredersdorf painting, and light and barely there in the not!Fraunces painting.
4. The eyes are blue in the one Fredersdorf painting, but darker in the other two.
5. Honestly, I think the coat and background are the most similar. :P But then, IDing via portrait is hard; if I had nothing else to go on, I would probably id Fredersdorf and Fritz as the same person, based on everything but the nose! L'autre moi-meme? :P
6. What is not!Fraunces holding in that one painting? Is that a cane?
Anyway, I need to know more about the documentary source for Fritz ordering paintings for his Rheinsberg friends! I might contact this Dr. Kuhle. I'm an American scholar studying Fredersdorf. :P
What are your thoughts? I have pinged prinzsorgenfrei as well for input.
Speaking of whom, they would like to know if anyone in salon has contacts to the Housesteads Roman Fort near Hadrian's Wall. I don't, but I'm passing on the question in the unlikely event anyone here does. I do not know for what purpose.
Speaking of contacting people, I need to contact liriaen and let her know about the James Keith posthumous drama! It doesn't really get us closer to rebuilding her lost family tree, but it's cool!
1. Is it just me, or does not!Fraunces look older than both Fredersdorfs? And I know paintings aren't photographs, and artists differed in how much they prettified, but if these two were painted at or shortly after Rheinsberg days, he should look younger.
Exactly. The only other Fredersdorf painting I know (the non-Pesne one) shows him older and also thinner, more haggard, so while the Pesne Frederdof might develop into either of those guys, it doesn't make sense for Not!Fraunce to supposedly be earlier than the other two, that man is certainly older than the guy from the Zernikow painting.
Now Pesne's male depictions do resemble each other (unless he's painting FW!), as you note with the Fritz portrait, and wig and formal wear enhance that idea. Since Pesne was THE fashionable court painter for two and a half generations, I bet a lot of painters were imitating him, especially his younger Fritz portraits, and who ever is depicted in the New Jersey portrait could easily have been depicted by someone who wanted to see himself stylized a la Fritz-as-depicted-by-Pesne. So I'm going with "not Fredersdorf", but you should contact this Dr. Kuhle anyway.
that man is certainly older than the guy from the Zernikow painting.
Thank you for confirming my impression. I do want to contact Dr. Kuhle to get more details on when Fritz supposedly commissioned these paintings; maybe we'll learn something interesting even if this isn't a member of the Rheinsberg cohort!
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Paintings of Fredersdorf?
To summarize, there's a painting of Some Eighteenth-Century Dude in a museum in New York. It's always been identified as an American revolutionary named Samuel Fraunces. But then a scholar at the University of Göttingen, Dr. Kuhle, found a nearly identical portrait in Dresden, that really obviously depicts the same person. That made it less likely that the New York portrait depicted an American, and the museum stopped labeling it as Samuel Fraunces.
Meanwhile,
Dr. Kuhle believes the subject is a member of Frederick's most intimate inner circle of male friends who lived with him at his palace in Rheinsberg. In Frederick's early years he commissioned a portrait cycle of these intimate friends; four portraits are known and are part of the collection of the Museum Huis Doorn in The Netherlands today. They include Dietrich von Keyserlingk, Charles Etienne Jordan, Isaak Franz Egmont von Chasot and Ernst Heinrich August de la Motte Fouqué. But it is well documented that Frederick had six intimates at the time, including Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf (1708-1758) and Francesco Algarotti (1712-1764). Both of these men are missing from the cycle, but are the subject of other works by Pensne and Jean-Etienne Liotard that that bear a resemblance to the Fraunces Tavern Museum and Staatliche Kunstsammlungen paintings.
Now, right away we've got some problems here.
1. The traditional list of 6 is Keyserlingk, Jordan, Wartensleben, Hacke, Fredersdorf, and Eichel. There's only partial overlap between that list and Keyserlingk, Jordan, Chasot, Fouqué, Fredersdorf, and Algarotti.
2. Fritz had a lot more than 6 intimates at Rheinsberg (!).
3. Algarotti only by a real stretch could be called "an intimate at Rheinsberg"; he passed through for a few days once. He certainly never lived there.
4. Fouque and Keyserlingk also never lived there, although since they visited a lot, I'll allow it.
5. The article says art conservators determined that it was painted between the late 18th and early 19th centuries. On the other hand, it could be a copy (the wig does look more 1750s than 1790s to me).
Then there's the compare-and-contrast of the 2 not!Fraunces with the 2 Fredersdorf paintings.
1. Is it just me, or does not!Fraunces look older than both Fredersdorfs? And I know paintings aren't photographs, and artists differed in how much they prettified, but if these two were painted at or shortly after Rheinsberg days, he should look younger.
2. The face looks less round to me (aka how I can tell Katte and Catt apart when historians confuse them), but then the other Fredersdorf painting looks somewhere in between.
3. The eyebrows are thick and dark in the one Fredersdorf painting, thin and dark in the other Fredersdorf painting, and light and barely there in the not!Fraunces painting.
4. The eyes are blue in the one Fredersdorf painting, but darker in the other two.
5. Honestly, I think the coat and background are the most similar. :P But then, IDing via portrait is hard; if I had nothing else to go on, I would probably id Fredersdorf and Fritz as the same person, based on everything but the nose! L'autre moi-meme? :P
6. What is not!Fraunces holding in that one painting? Is that a cane?
Anyway, I need to know more about the documentary source for Fritz ordering paintings for his Rheinsberg friends! I might contact this Dr. Kuhle. I'm an American scholar studying Fredersdorf. :P
What are your thoughts? I have pinged
Speaking of whom, they would like to know if anyone in salon has contacts to the Housesteads Roman Fort near Hadrian's Wall. I don't, but I'm passing on the question in the unlikely event anyone here does. I do not know for what purpose.
Speaking of contacting people, I need to contact
Re: Paintings of Fredersdorf?
Exactly. The only other Fredersdorf painting I know (the non-Pesne one) shows him older and also thinner, more haggard, so while the Pesne Frederdof might develop into either of those guys, it doesn't make sense for Not!Fraunce to supposedly be earlier than the other two, that man is certainly older than the guy from the Zernikow painting.
Now Pesne's male depictions do resemble each other (unless he's painting FW!), as you note with the Fritz portrait, and wig and formal wear enhance that idea. Since Pesne was THE fashionable court painter for two and a half generations, I bet a lot of painters were imitating him, especially his younger Fritz portraits, and who ever is depicted in the New Jersey portrait could easily have been depicted by someone who wanted to see himself stylized a la Fritz-as-depicted-by-Pesne. So I'm going with "not Fredersdorf", but you should contact this Dr. Kuhle anyway.
Re: Paintings of Fredersdorf?
Thank you for confirming my impression. I do want to contact Dr. Kuhle to get more details on when Fritz supposedly commissioned these paintings; maybe we'll learn something interesting even if this isn't a member of the Rheinsberg cohort!
Re: Paintings of Fredersdorf?