Miniature portrait of Polish Princess Lucy Franciszka Lubomirska.

(1751 Heilbronn – 1818 Vienna) A significant miniature portrait of the Polish Princess Lucy Francisca Lubomirska, later Countess Tyszkiewicz (1770–1811), in a leather case. The oval depicts the princess, turned to the left with her gaze directed at the viewer, plucking the feathered wings of a departing, recumbent Cupid. She is dressed in a blue gown accented with lace and pearls, and a dark velvet corseted dress. On her head she wears an elegantly styled blue hat with dark gray ostrich feathers and pearls over gray wavy hair. In the background, there is a bird in a cage surrounded by a forest landscape. The cage is inscribed and dated "1788." Exquisite tempera on ivory. Decorative, gilded original brass frame with a pearl frieze, adjustable on the reverse. Engraved on the back is "Lucy de Lubomirska in 1788, aged 18." The case is lined with wine-red velvet and silk. 16.5 cm x 13 cm. Includes a CITES certificate.

A self-taught artist and miniaturist, Heinrich Friedrich Füger studied law in Halle before becoming a student of the painter Adam Friedrich Oeser in Leipzig in 1768. In 1774, he traveled to Vienna and the imperial court, where he created numerous portraits of nobility and figures from politics and society. As part of a scholarship in Rome in 1776, he became a student of Anton Raphael Mengs and returned to Austria in 1783 upon being appointed Vice-Director of the Vienna Academy by State Chancellor Prince Kaunitz. From 1795, he served as court painter in Vienna and Director of the Academy of Fine Arts, taking over the management of the Imperial Picture Gallery in Vienna in 1806. Füger is considered a precursor of Austrian Classicism. His works can be found, among other places, in the Albertina in Vienna and the National Gallery in Berlin. The portrait of Princess Lubomirska is listed in "Schidlof," 1964, Graz, Volume I, p. 273, Plate XI as "Princess Lucy Lubomirska Plucking Cupid" and was there assessed as "magnificent." See also Keil, 1977, p. 79, Thieme-Becker, Volume XII, p. 553. Provenance: From the collection of a significant North German private collection, according to "Schidlof," previously from the collection of E. Arnold, Berlin.