Anna Rosina de Gasc, née Lisiewska (1716 - 1783)

Ferdinand of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel was the brother of Duke Karl I. He enjoyed a distinguished military career: he was made General Major of the Prussian army in 1743, Generalleutnant in 1750, and was appointed Field Marshall of Prussia in 1758, and of Austria in 1766. During the Seven Years War he was commander-in-chief of the army in northern Germany against the French. A much decorated man, he is here shown with a variety of Orders, including the sash and badge of the Garter, the Johanniter, the cross of the Magdeburg Domherren, and the Black Eagle of Prussia. He died unmarried in 1792.

Anna Rosina de Gasc, née Liszewska was the daughter of the Polish portrait painter Georg Liszewski (1674-1746) and the sister of the more famous painter Anna Dorothea Therbusch (1721-1782). In 1741 she married the painter Georg Matthieu (1697-1755) and after his death she married in 1760 Ludwig de Gasc. In 1764 she was invited to the court at Brunswick, and seems to have remained there with some success. In 1769, the year after this portrait was painted, she was elected as a member of the Academy in Dresden. This would appear to be the best and earliest version of this portait type of the Duke, and may be de Gasc's prime original. Another smaller version (112.5 by 81.5 cm) is in the Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum in Brunswick (Inv. Nr. 782), and others are in the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha collections and the Städtische Museum, Brunswick.

Provenance:
Blankenburg circa 1929, Inv. Nr. 1182.

Literature:
Possibly U. Christoffel, Deutsche Kunst 1650-1800, Munich 1923, p. 30, reproduced (as Duke Karl I)