Anton Raphael Mengs and Workshop

This painting is a replica, possibly with some autograph parts, of the prime version of this portrait by Mengs in the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden,¹ of which another autograph example is in the collection of Count Lagnasco. The sitter was the daughter of the Elector and later Emperor Karl Albert of Bavaria and wife of the Prince Elector of Saxony, Friedrich Christian (1722-63). She is shown here wearing the red sash and Star of the Russian Order of Saint Catherine, and the Austrian Order of the Starry Cross on a black ribbon. 

This work is of similar lateral dimensions to the prime, though more of the crown on the left is visible here, but it is slightly cropped vertically, so it includes less of the red drapery in the background. In her Digital Supplement to the Mengs catalogue raisonné, Prof. Dr. Roettgen describes the quality of this work, particularly in the execution of the jewels and fabrics, as hardly less than that of the other versions by Mengs.

It is possible that this painting may have come from Mengs' estate. In the inventory of 1779, two three-quarter length paintings of the Elector of Saxony and his wife are described.² Their value is recorded as 12 Scudi, a comparatively low price, which may reflect the status of the works as 'replicas.' Roettgen suggests as a pendant to the present painting the portrait of Friedrich Christian of Saxony, which is today in a private collection in Warsaw.³

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¹ Inv. no. 2163: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maria_Antonia_Walpurgis_von_Bayern,_Mengs,_1752.jpg

² See S. Roettgen, Anton Raphael Mengs 1728-1779. Das malerische und zeichnerische Werk, Munich 1999, p. 566 [f. 493r, no. 52].

³ See Roettgen 1999, p. 225, no. 153-WK7.