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 second portrait of Frederick Francis I (cf. inv. no. 10073) from a series of miniatures showing the duke created by Domenico Bossi around 17951 differs from the first in that the sitter has a slightly different facial expression and shows a little more of his profile.
Frederick Francis married Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Roda (cf. inv. no. 10072) in 1775 and became Grand Duke in 1815. He pursued an ambitious marriage policy. His son Frederick Louis was married to Helena Pawlowna, a daughter of the Czar,2 his daughter Charlotte became the wife of the Danish king Christian VIII, and his daughter Louise was first engaged to the Swedish King Gustav IV but finally married Duke August of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. At the suggestion of his personal physician, Samuel Gottlieb Vogel, Frederick Francis I founded the first German seaside resort Heiligendamm (also called “the white town by the sea”) on the Baltic Sea near Doberan, which is characterized by an impressive ensemble of classicist architecture.
J. S. O.

1 Cf. A register of portraits of the Mecklenburgian dukes drawn up at the beginning of the 20th century, now in the state museum of Schwerin (Staatliches Museum Schwerin), indicates that Bossi supplied five portraits of the duke in 1796. A copy by Wilhelm August Christian Abel from 1801 was sold at Sotheby’s, London, on October 24, 2002, no 23.
2 A copy of Bossi’s miniature, ascribed to Wilhelm August Christian Abel, was up for auction at Christie’s London on May 25, 2004 (no. 101). In the copy the duke is wearing the breast star of the Danish Order of the Elephant. The miniature and a portrait of Czar Paul I of Russia, painted by Edward Miles, are both set on the lid of the same tabatière.