6040 - German

German circa 1700. Portrait of Boguslaw, Prince of Radziwill, Lithuanian magnate and governor of the Duchy of Prussia. Oil on canvas, with relining. 131.5 x 97 cm. Inscribed upper left: “Prince of Rassewyl. / Prince of Radzivil.” This portrait was likely painted during the reign of Frederick I and hung alongside other portraits of military commanders in the Potsdam City Palace (see also Lot 6039). Bogusław Radziwiłł (1620–1669) came from one of the most prominent Lithuanian magnate families and was among the most influential statesmen of the 17th-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. As the holder of the highest Lithuanian offices and governor of the Duchy of Prussia, he occupied a key position between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Brandenburg-Prussian state. As the last male representative of the Calvinist branch of the House of Radziwill, he embodies both the outstanding significance of his dynasty for Poland-Lithuania and the political rise of Prussia in the second half of the 17th century. Provenance: From the Royal Prussian collection, Potsdam City Palace. Collection of Prince Eitel Friedrich of Prussia, Villa Ingenheim, Potsdam. In a private collection in Berlin since 1948. Lit.: General Catalog of Paintings in the Prussian Palaces (GK I), Berlin 1883 ff., No. 4279 (label on the reverse). Bogislav von Puttkamer: “The Portrait Gallery of Chur-Brandenburg and Royal Prussian Generals, Colonels, and Junior Officers in the Royal City Palace in Potsdam,” in: Communications of the Society for the History of Potsdam, Vol. 2 (1866), pp. 157–177, here p. 159. Kurt von Priesdorff: Military Leadership, Vol. 1: The Generals from the Beginnings of the Electoral Brandenburg-Prussian Army until 1740, Hamburg 1937, p. 13, no. 14 with ill. - Please ask for condition reports for individual lots, as the condition is usually not mentioned in the catalog. - Please ask for condition reports for individual lots, as the condition is usually not mentioned in the catalog.