Portrait of King Stanisław I Leszczyński in knightly armor

(1683 Paris – 1757 Berlin) Portrait of King Stanisław I Leszczyński of Poland, Duke of Lorraine and Bar, half-length portrait of the king in knightly armor without any emblems of royal dignity, his right hand resting on the upper end of a marshal’s baton. The body is depicted almost entirely in profile, turning his head to the left, with a calm gaze directed at the viewer. A row of displayed orders is visible, worn by the king himself, respectively presented on a red cloth-covered frame at the back: the top star is the Order of Saint Andrew, established in 1698 by Tsar Peter I of Russia; below it is the Order of Saint Anne, founded in 1735 by Duke Charles Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp; the corresponding jewel is worn by Stanisław on a red necklace; the blue shoulder sash may belong to the ribbon of the Polish Order of the White Eagle (established in 1705 by King Augustus the Strong); additionally, he wears a small order cross on a red ribbon in the form of a rosette, the Order of Saint Louis (founded in 1693 by Louis XIV), likely awarded in 1725, when his daughter Maria Leszczyńska married Louis XV. The painting was probably created in 1735/36, after King Stanisław I found refuge with Prussian King Frederick William in 1734 due to the War of the Polish Succession, and before he became Duke of Lorraine and Bar in 1736. Remarkable in this portrait is the great similarity of the image type to the well-known, widely reproduced final portrait of Frederick II, painted from life by Pesne in 1739 in the Berlin Picture Gallery (State Museums in Berlin – Prussian Cultural Heritage, Inv. No. 489). In the two published catalogs of Pesne, issued in 1958/60, only two portraits of the Polish king are documented: a large half-length portrait from 1736 (in Charlottenburg Palace) and a hidden portrait offered at auction in Hamburg in 1779. It is unclear whether they are the same. Oil on canvas; on the reverse of the canvas, an old (possibly later added) inscription reads "Peint à Berlin (...) t Pesne Berlin an 17 (...)", with the last two digits of the year missing. 82 cm x 66 cm. A certificate from Professor Dr. Helmut Börsch-Supan, Berlin, April 25, 2023, is attached.