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Studio of Johann Georg Ziesenis (1716-76)

Generalfeldmarschall Friedrich von Spörcken (1698-1776) 1770-76

Oil on canvas | 137.0 x 102.3 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external) | RCIN 400921

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  • Born in Copenhagen in 1716, Johann Georg Ziesenis was a pupil of his father Johan Jürgen Ziesenis. He became a German citizen in 1743 and was first appointed court painter in Zweibrücken, then in Mannheim. In 1760 he entered into the service of George II of Hannover and, subsequently, George III; Ziesenis also worked in Berlin and Brunswick. The Royal Collection owns a significant group of Ziesenis portraits, illustrating members of various eighteenth-century noble German dynasties – notably from the houses of Mecklenburg-Streliz and Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.

    Producing around 260 works in his lifetime, most of which were portraits, Ziesenis is remembered for his intimate portrayals of the future wife of George III, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Streliz, Crown Prince Frederick and Frederick II. He began his career working in a traditional baroque style but, inspired by Rubens and Van Dyck, effected a transformation in the 1750s, introducing a heightened psychology to his character studies. Ziesenis practised a new type of enlightened portraiture, the private court portrait. He depicted his subjects at ease in natural surroundings, an emphasis on education and worldliness rather than on power. In this way Ziesenis' work ranks alongside the great English eighteenth-century portraitists. Indeed, his biographer, F. F. Kuntze, states that in invention and execution Ziesenis was the highpoint of eighteenth-century German portraiture and his best work ranks alongside the great painters of the English enlightenment.

    In the later part of his career, Ziesenis' art exemplified the period of Zopfstil or Citizen's Rococo, literally a "pig-tail style". This new style stood at a transition point between late Rococo and the burgeoning reprisal of stark, Hellenic Classicism in the hands of Winckelmann, best displayed in the furniture of the time. Ziesenis' portraits of this period introduce a certain air of civic responsibility and mark a departure from the florid pleasure gardens of Rococo fashion.

    August Friedrich von Spörcken (1698–1776) was a Hanoverian soldier. He served in the War of Polish Succession, the War of Austrian Succession and also, notably, the Seven Years' War. At the latter he led the Hanoverian section at a number of major battles including Krefeld and Minden. Von Spörcken became Field Marshal in 1764. This portrait shows the sitter in the unform of the Hanoverian Foot Guards, with his bicorne hat on the bank behind and holding a circular gold box. It is a studio copy of Ziesenis's portrait (RCIN 402745), which makes it difficult to distinguish between the two in the Royal Collection inventories. A number of other replicas exist, attributed either to Ziesenis or his studio: in the Duke of Brunswick's collection, others in the Duke of Cumberland's collection and in a private collection in Oslo.

    Provenance

    Presented to George IV by Lord Dundas in January 1811; recorded in Store at Carlton House in 1819 (no 287) and in the Princesses' (now Principal) Corridor at Buckingham Palace in 1876

  • Medium and techniques

    Oil on canvas

    Measurements

    137.0 x 102.3 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external)

    157.9 x 122.9 x 7.4 cm (frame, external)

  • Alternative title(s)

    General von Spörcke, Governor of Hanover

    General von Spoercke

    General von Spalcken


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