Portrait of a Lady C.1750; Circle of Antoine Pesne (1683-1757)

Oil on canvas.

n this portrait the sitter has been depicted wearing a blue silk dress decorated profusely with silver embroidery, white lace cuffs, and surrounded by a crimson wrap. The realistic depiction of the fabrics are impressive and the artist has shown particular technical skill depicting the lace with bravura. The distinctive qualities of Pesne’s work are clearly visible in the sharp clarity of the figure and particularly Joachim Martin Falbe (1709-1782) who was a pupil of Pesne. Presented in an antique rococo frame.

Antoine Pesne (1683-1757), French-born Rococo painter of historical subjects and portraits who was the most important artist in Prussia in the first half of the 18th century and he became one of the fathers of rococo in painting. His work represents a link between the French school and the Frederican rococo style. His father, the painter Thomas Pesne, and his maternal great-uncle, Charles de La Fosse, had an early influence. He was trained in Paris and awarded his first prize in 1703. While studying in Paris, he was influenced by the leading French portraitists, Hyacinthe Rigaud and Nicolas de Largillière and through his studies in Italy he developed an outstanding talent as a colourist. In 1707 his work attracted the attention of Frederick I of Prussia, who appointed him court portraitist and also carried out the ceiling paintings and murals of the palaces of Rheinsberg, Charlottenburg, Berlin, Potsdam, and Sanssouci. He continued to paint portraits, some of which achieve by their brushwork and brilliant colouring an almost impressionistic effect.

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