"Portrait of Friedrich Wilhelm III on horseback" - a picture of the German artist Franz Kruger from the Military Gallery of the Winter Palace .
Franz Kruger | ||
Portrait of Friedrich Wilhelm III on horseback . 1831 | ||
Canvas, oil. 361 × 258 cm | ||
State Hermitage , St. Petersburg | ||
( inv. GE-7806 ) |
Picture Description
The picture is an equestrian portrait of the Prussian king Frederick William III from the Military Gallery of the Winter Palace [1] .
The Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm III is depicted in a Prussian general's uniform, wearing a general's hat, riding a bay suit, against the backdrop of Berlin , on the left you can see the National Monument of the German Liberation War against Napoleon KF Shinkel on Mount Kreuzberg . On the chest are crosses of the Russian Order of St. George 4th class, the Prussian Order of the Iron Cross , the Austrian Military Order of Maria Theresa , the Prussian medal "In memory of the war of 1813-1815" , an unidentified medal and the star of the Prussian Order of the Black Eagle . At the bottom right, the artist’s signature and date: F. Krüger pinx 1831 [2] . Signed on the frame with an error in the date of writing the picture: Frederick William III, King of Prussia, 1799-1840. Works by F. Kruger ca. 1837 [3]
Creation History
The painting was commissioned by the artist in the first half of the 1820s and finished, as follows from the author's signature in 1831. On February 24, 1832, she arrived in St. Petersburg and Prince P. Volkonsky, the minister of the imperial court, instructed the chief curator of the Hermitage State Councilor F. I. Labensky "to take the picture brought from Berlin to the Hermitage from the Chancellery, pull it on the heels, and then to say what it represents ” [4] , to which Labensky on the same day reported: “ after opening the box there was a portrait of the King of Prussia in full growth, riding a horse, perfectly preserved ” [5] .
The portrait was immediately installed in the Military Gallery of the Winter Palace and made a strong impression on everyone. At the end of March 1832, the Prussian king Frederick Wilhelm III wrote to his daughter, Russian Empress Alexandra Feodorovna : “I am very pleased that my portrait was liked, but Kruger is a wonderful artist, one of a kind. And this is his first work of such a large size. He doesn’t want anything as much as to go to Petersburg, but I think that because of the many things he has yet to give up on this ” [4] .
As a fee, Emperor Nicholas I granted Kruger a gold diamond box with diamonds [6] .
Since the equestrian portrait of Emperor Alexander I , written by George Dow for the Military Gallery, was unsuccessful, under the impression of the portrait of the Prussian king, it was decided to order Kruger a new portrait of Alexander I , who, after several years of work, was painted and in 1839 replaced the Military Gallery portrait by Dow [7] .
Initial and subsequent portraits
For the first time, this type of portrait of the Prussian king Kruger was depicted in the drawing “Friedrich Wilhelm III with Sons”, performed around 1825–28 (63.5 × 48.5 cm), this drawing is kept in the collection of the Engraving Cabinet of the Berlin State Museums [8] . At the exhibition in the Berlin Academy of Arts in 1828, Kruger exhibited an enlarged version of this drawing depicting a monument on the Kreuzberg mountain; this drawing is in the collection of the San Susi Palace in Potsdam , and preliminary sketches are also kept there [2] .
After the picture for the Military Gallery was sent to St. Petersburg, Kruger wrote her exact repetition for the king. This copy was shown at the academic exhibition of 1832 in Berlin and then until 1939 was kept in the palace Monbiju in Berlin. At the beginning of World War II, it was evacuated, hidden in one of the underground storage facilities and discovered in 1945 by American troops, after which it was handed over to the authorities of West Berlin . Exhibited at Charlottenburg Palace [6] .
In 1842, Kruger painted a large painting “Friedrich Wilhelm III with his retinue”, on which he repeated the figure of the king from the gallery portrait almost unchanged, the current location of this painting has not been established, it is known for its old reproductions and descriptions [9]
Notes
- ↑ State Hermitage. - Kruger, Franz. "Portrait of Friedrich Wilhelm III".
- ↑ 1 2 Asvarisch, 1988 , p. 161.
- ↑ Podmaso, 2013 , p. 70
- ↑ 1 2 Podmaso, 2013 , p. 36
- ↑ Podmaso, 2013 , p. 71
- ↑ 1 2 Asvarisch, 1988 , p. 162.
- ↑ Podmaso, 2013 , p. 37.
- ↑ Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Ausstellung im Alten Museum. Karl Friedrich Schinkel. 1781-1841. - Berlin, 1980. - Nr. 328.
- ↑ Boetticher F. Malerwerke des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts. Bd. I — II. - Dresden, 1891-1901. - Bd. I — 2. - S. 776. - Nr. 29; Pelet-Narbon G. von. Geschichte der Brandenburg-Preussischen Reiterei von der Zeiten des Grossen Kurfürsten bis zur Gegenwart. - Berlin, 1908. - Bd. 2. - S. 180
Literature
- B.I. Asvarishch. German and Austrian paintings of the 19th — 20th centuries. Catalog (State Hermitage. Collection of Western European painting). - L .: Art, 1988. - 370 p.
- Podmaso A. A. Images of the heroes of the Patriotic War of 1812: the Military Gallery of the Winter Palace. - M .: Russian Knights, 2013. - 864 p. - ISBN 978-5-903389-62-9 .