Lot 285: STEFANO TORELLI BOLOGNA 1712 - 1784 ST PETERSBURG

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION

PORTRAIT OF PRINCESS CHARLOTTE AMALIE WILHELMINE VON SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN SONDERBURG PLÖN (1744-1770), THREE-QUARTER LENGTH SEATED

measurements note
93 by 69 cm.; 36 5/8 by 27 1/4 in.

inscribed on the reverse: Stephanus Torelli/ Regis. Polonie Pictor./ Fecit

oil on canvas, in its original carved and gilt wood frame, carved with the initials CA on the crest

PROVENANCE

Anonymous sale, Berlin, Graupe, 27-28 May 1935, lot 145, whence acquired by the grandfather of the owners from whom it was confiscated by the Russian army of occupation and transferred to the Museum in Magdeburg;
Restituted to the family in 2001 and sold by one of the heirs ("The Property of a Nobleman"), London, Sotheby's, 18 April 2002, lot 122, where acquired by the present collector.

LITERATURE

V. Thorlacius Ussing, "Stefano Torelli", in Kunstmuseets Årsskrift, 1964-65, pp. 35 and 46, footnotes 62 and 63;
I. Graziani, La bottega dei Torelli. Da Bologna alla Russia di Caterina la Grande, Bologna 2005, pp. 289-90, cat. no. 74, reproduced, and reproduced in colour p. 144.

NOTE

Charlotte Amalie was born in Plön in 1744, the daughter of Duke Friedrich Karl von Schleswig-Holstein Sonderburg Plön (1706-1761) and Christine Armgard Duchess of Reventlow (1711-1779). A portrait of the family of Duke Friedrich by Johann Heinrich Tischbein the Elder and dated 1759, in Frederiksborg Castle, Denmark (reproduced in Johann Heinrich Tischbein d.A., exhibition catalogue, Kassel, Neue Galerie, 25 November 1989 - 11 February 1990, pp. 113-4, plate 19), shows a similar likeness of Charlotte Amalie, depicted full-length and holding a parasol. The identity of the sitter is also confirmed by the monogram CA on the crest of the original frame. It is highly plausible that Torelli's portrait was commissioned three years after Tischbein's painting, to mark the occasion of the sitter's marriage on 26 May 1762 to Friedrich Christian, reigning Duke of Schleswig-Holstein Sonderburg, at Schloß Reinfeld, near Lübeck. Indeed the painting is stylistically consistent with other portraits of the Danish nobility, most notably the Portrait of Heinrich Carl Schimmelmann and his wife Countess Caroline Tugenreich Schimmelman in Reventlow-Museet, Pederstrup (on deposit in Ny Carlsbergfondet), which must pre-date April 1762 (see Graziani, under Literature, pp. 287-88, cat. nos. 71 and 72, both reproduced). The portrait evidently enjoyed some success for a number of copies are recorded in Denmark by Thorlacius Ussing (see Literature): two in the Frederiksborg Museum, Copenhagen (inv. 4128 and 4635), and two in private hands.

Torelli is known to have worked in Lübeck in the early 1760s. He painted ten allegorical works for the Town Hall as well as a number of portraits, including that of Count Chasot dated 1762, now in the City Library. Towards the end of 1762 the artist moved to Saint Petersburg, where he became one of the principal portrait painters to Catherine the Great.