Agnieszka Emerchanna: Portrait of the Great Hetman

(1673 Sokolya/Hungary – 1757 Dresden) Portrait of Agnieszka Emerchanna Potocka, née Warszycka. The painting, created between 1715 and 1722, depicts one of the famous mistresses of Augustus the Strong (1670–1733), Frederick Augustus I, Elector of Saxony and, from 1697 in personal union, Augustus II, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania. Agnieszka Emerchanna (c. 1690 – after 1759) was the wife of the Grand Treasurer and Grand Hetman of Lithuania, Ludwik Konstanty Potocki. From 1709, she spent more and more time at the royal court in Warsaw and Dresden, where she became the mistress of Augustus II. In 1719, she gave birth to a daughter, possibly the king’s child. In the early 1730s, Agnieszka Emerchanna became a widow, and in the same year she married Count Joseph Alexandre de Montmorency de Bours (d. 1759), Commander-in-Chief of the Saxon Army. The artist vividly conveyed the self-confident and at the same time erotically coquettish character of her personality, depicting her in a dynamic pose in male attire: she wears a tricorn hat, her justaucorps is open wide enough to reveal her décolleté, and around her neck is a cheerful, delicate violet bow with a tie. The depiction is executed in delicate tones of gazelle and pink shades, giving her body and face a fully modeled plastic appearance, with full, red lips. The use of women’s clothing in this painting belongs to the most impressive achievements of Mányoki. At the same time, it conveys a striking impression of the erotically charged atmosphere at the court of Augustus the Strong. A second version, differing only in details, is located in the Łazienki Palace in Warsaw. This painting belongs to a group of portraits that were probably acquired by King Stanisław II August Poniatowski of Poland around 1764 together with the Ujazdów estate from Kasper Lubomirski. In the inventory of Stanisław August’s gallery, the painting was listed in 1784–1792 as a work by Mányoki. The esteemed portraitist Ádám Mányoki was appointed court painter to Augustus the Strong in 1713 and worked in Dresden until 1723. There and during his travels he created numerous portraits of famous and important figures of the aristocracy and court society. Canvas, restored. Accompanied by an expert opinion by Professor Dr. Helmut Börsch-Supan from Berlin, November 13, 2011. Literature (regarding the version in the Łazienki Palace in Warsaw): Enikő Buzási: "Ádám Mányoki (1673–1757)", monograph and catalogue raisonné, Budapest 2003, No. B. 296, color illustration 29/p. 84; Dorota Juszczak and Hanna Małachowicz, catalogue of the Stanisław August Picture Gallery in the Royal Łazienki Park, Warsaw 2015, catalogue No. 69, pp. 261–263.