"Frederick Christian, Prince of Saxony" clothbound notebook

Plain paper. Singer stitch binding. 18 x 24 cm. 64 sheets (126 pages).

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 notebook of Frederick Christian, Prince of Saxony (1751), the man wears sumptuous antique steel armor with gold trim and red velvet lining. The torch in his right hand characterizes him as a firm ruler. Mengs combined different textures and colored surfaces to create an exciting display of contrasts and alternations, added to an iconographic display to give the subject the appropriate majesty.