Buzási Enikő szerk.: In Europe' Princely Courts, Ádám Mányoki, Actors and venues of a portraitist's career (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 2003/1)

Harald Marx: "THE LUCKY STAR OF PAINTING HAS RISEN" Painting and Art Patronage in Dresden under Augustus the Strong and Augustus III

for Dresden that showed Emperor Augustus, but referred figuratively to King Augustus III. A recent acquisition of the Dresden Gallery Silvestre's Augustus closing the temple of Janus, displayed at the Paris "Salon" in 1757 - is of special relevance here.

21 The Roman god of open gates, of entrances and exits, Janus looks forward and backward, therefore he is represented with two faces. The "Janus-face" is indicated in the painting as a medallion relief on the top right of the building: the temple erected to Janus on Forum Romanum in Rome is a gateway with a front and rear door, through which the soldiers set out to war. It could only be closed in peacetime.

22 Dresden became familiar with the historical and allegorical representation of Saxon history during the reign of Augustus the Strong, who ruled as the elector of Saxony from 1694 and as king of Poland from 1697. Louis de Silvestre also began his career in Saxony with works dealing with this subject matter.

23 However, the idea of representing themes of Roman history as references to the conditions in Dresden appears to derive originally from count Francesco Algarotti (1712-1764), who applied for a post in Dresden in 1742 and needed to win the favour of the prime minister, count Heinrich Brühl, to this end. Algarotti gave two paintings as a present to Brühl, ordered from Giovanni Battista Tiepolo for this purpose: The realm of Flora

2i (San Francisco, M.H. de Young Memorial Museum) and Maecenas placing the arts under the patronage of Augustus (St. Petersburg, Hermitage).

25 The Realm of Plora suggests a flourishing Saxony and Poland; in this work we recognise Count Brühl as Emperor Augustus's confidant, Maecenas, whose name later became a synonym for all patrons of art and artists, while the emperor represents King Augustus III. Under such a minister and such a king, art could indeed flourish. Probably Brühl was flattered, but the Tiepolo paintings brought no success to Algarotti. The prime minister had other advisers on questions of art, first of all, the above-mentioned Carl Heinrich von Heineken,

26 and there were painters in Dresden who satisfied his requirements. Indeed, one cannot speak of the reign of Augustus III without mentioning his prime minister, count Heinrich Brühl, who was at the helm in both political and artistic matters, organising and mediating, always with a view to his own interests, as well as the king's majesty and glory. Brühl also had a highly valuable picture collection of some one thousand paintings, which was assigned a separate building in 1744 on the "Brühl terrace."

27 "Tests" from Johann Christian Hasche's work Dresdner Kunstgeschichte, appeared in 1787 in the pages of Magazin der sächsischen Geschichte, edited and largely written by him. Here, he remarks: "But as soon as Augustus III, the great connoisseur of art, had founded the magnificent gallery, for which he had purchased the Modenese for 12 tons of gold, had ordered the preparation of the large book of engravings, and had erected the Catholic Church, art raised its head proudly under the protection of his generosity, to which the following artists bear witness."

28 The list and discussion of artists begin with Louis de Silvestre, who lived in Dresden from 1716, and follow with a multitude of painters, copperplate engravers, architects, sculptors, and even art writers. Hasche recorded where each artist had come from, demonstrating that under Augustus III, just like under his father Augustus the Strong, the arts owed their efflorescence to the unceasing influence of artists from Italy and France, as well as other German states such as BrandenburgPrussia and Bavaria. Although the death of Augustus the Strong and the accession of his son Augustus III in 1733 did not steer art in Dresden in a new direction, time produced demonstrable changes in tastes and the focus of the court in art collecting and commissioning. Similarly to his father, Augustus III was also deeply attached to arts and a real connoisseur in some areas. His study tour of Europe, especially his time spent in France and Italy in 1711-19 was decisive in his attainments in the arts as he grew from boy to adolescent to young man. Knowing the king's biography, one cannot be surprised at the internationalism of art and court life during his reign.

29 During his "Kavaliersreise", the German equivalent of the "grand tour," the heir apparent converted to Catholicism in Bologna in 1712. His conversion, at first kept secret, further strengthened the Catholic tendency that had begun with the conversion of Augustus the Strong. A famous example illustrates the kind of consequences this move could have: the purchase of Raphael's (1483-1520) Sistine Madonna in 1754 was at first approved by Philip, duke of Parma and Piacenza (reigned: 1748-1765), but he later proved reluctant. The sale only came through with the intervention of Pope Benedict XIV (1740-1758), despite the opposition of the population of Piacenza.

30 When in 1715 the heir to the throne had his portrait painted by Hyacinthe Rigaud (1659-1743) in Paris, his conversion was not yet publicly known. The painter showed him adorned with the Danish Elephant Order of the Protestants, which he could not wear as a Catholic. In the Parisian engraving made by Jean Joseph Balechou (1719-1764) nearly forty years later, the king wears the Catholic White Eagle Order in place of the former. In religion, there were new tendencies, but in architecture, music and fine and decorative arts, the old enthusiasm had not changed. For Saxon art, a significant consequence of the heir's journey to Paris was the invitation of Louis de Silvestre to Dresden as the chief court painter, Premier Peintre du Roi.

31 His work in Dresden from 1716 turned the attention of Saxon painting towards France and even had