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

Count Brühl, he planned his palaces and Belvedere, as well as his castles at Nischwitz and Pforten, on the "Brühl terrace." The king also took him into his favour and had him rebuild not only the gallery but also his hunting lodge, Hubertusburg at Wermsdorf/Oschatz (1743-1751).

70 The enormous castle, almost like a real residential palace, is one of the masterpieces of Dresden architecture. For quite a while almost the whole team of artists employed by the Saxon court were involved in the building, interior decoration, and furnishing, including sculptors Lorenzo Mattielli (between 1682 and 1688-1748) and Gottfried Knöffler (1715-1779), and painters Giovanni Battista Grone (1682-1748), Stefano Torelli (1712-1784), Louis de Silvestre, Adam Friedrich Oeser, and Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich. The interior decoration was complemented by choice pieces of the royal collection such as paintings by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. This castle was a special favourite of the king, and it must be treated as an important venue when the art of Dresden is examined, although during the Seven Years' War it was mercilessly pillaged and lost it earlier lustre. Where could the works of the 17

th- and 18

th-century court painters of Dresden be found? The 18

th-century catalogues provide the information: the "gallery pictures" were mostly paintings by "old" masters or famous foreign contemporaries. The crop of "contemporary art" could be found in a variety of places, such as the representative and residential suites of the royal mansion, various palaces of Dresden, in Hubertusburg, and the castles of Pillnitz and Moritzburg. The gallery only admitted works that appeared worthy of the great masters of the past. Of the painters living in Dresden in this period, few were considered by the king and his artistic advisers to have achieved the high standards of the gallery. Louis de Silvestre, who worked in Dresden as Premier Peintre du Roi for over thirty years and as the director of the academy, and who received a title of nobility in 1741 in recognition of his endeavours, only had a single painting in the gallery.

71 So long as the gallery was in the castle, the distinction was not so conspicuous. Carl Christian Schramm was able to write in the Neues Europäisches Historisches ReiseLexicon in 1744: "In the royal stateroom and other rooms the magnificent furnishings, [...] marvellous paintings by the greatest artists and by the chief court painter, Monseiur Louis de Silvestre can be admired [...], to Johann Alexander Thiele: View of Meissen. Etching, 1726 Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Kupferstichkabinett