The Tansey Miniatures Foundation

Die Miniatur Über den Künstler

The Tansey Miniatures Foundation

DE
The Miniature About the Artist

Frederick Francis I, Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin

Giovanni Domenico Bossi

This miniature was purchased as a portrait of Baron Olof Rudolf Cederstroem1 but has been identified as a portrait of Duke Frederick Francis I of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1756-1837) in the course of our research.2 The duke wears the highest Swedish order, the order of the Seraphine. It might be supposed that the reason for his receiving this medal was his daughter Louise’s engagement to Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden in 1795. However, the marriage did not take place and Louise married Duke August of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg in 1797. It was probably on the occasion of their engagement that Bossi was commissioned to create a series of portraits of the duke from which this miniature and the following might originate (cf. inv. no. 10074).
J. S. O.

1 Christie's London, December 29 and 30, 1982.
2 An almost identical miniature from the Hermann Emden Collection was auctioned in 1916 in Berlin. Cf. Kunst-Auktionshaus Rudolph Lepke, Berlin, February 29/March 2, 1916. The sitter was identified as Frederick Francis I. Other portraits which were used to identify the sitter show Friedrich Franz I with the Prussian order of the White Eagle, e.g. a pastel painting by Friedrich Erhard Wagener from 1803 and a miniature portrait by Wilhelm August Christian Abel from 1808, both in the possession of the Staatliches Museum Schwerin, as well as some oil paintings of the duke’s family in Ludwigslust Palace in Mecklenburg. Two miniatures of the sitter by Abel are kept in the National Museum in Stockholm (one of them dated 1803) and one in the Kunsthalle Hamburg (dated 1799). We are very grateful to Dr Kristina Hegener, Staatliches Museum Schwerin, to Mr Karl Trefzer, Basel, and to a gentleman who does not wish to be named.