"Frederick Christian, Prince of Saxony" cleaning cloth

16 x 21 cm. Microfiber

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 of Frederick Christian, Prince of Saxony (1751), reproduced on this cleaning cloth, 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.