"Maria Antonia of Bavaria, Electress of Saxony" folding pocket mirror

Fabric lined covers. 7.3 cm diameter.

The use of dynastic attributes in state portraits is very characteristic of the Saxon portrait tradition, an influence that the young Mengs picked up from the court painter Louis de Silvestre (1675-1760). In the portrait reproduced on the cover of this folding pocket mirror of Maria Antonia of Bavaria, Electress of Saxony(1751), the insignia of the Order of the Starry Cross of Austria, the decoration of the Order of St. Catherine, and the Grand Cross of the order that the princess wears on her chest stand out. She reaches out to take the Polish royal crown and is surrounded by a splendid architectural setting, an iconographic display designed to give the subject the appropriate majesty.