One more detail from the 1769 version of the will:
11. I am bequeathing to my sister, the Queen of Sweden, one of my golden boxes valued at 10,000 thalers, 20 buckets of Hungarian wine and a painting of Pesne in the Sanssouci Palace, which I received from Algarotti.
Of course I got curious, so I looked it up and it's apparently this one (in colour), with the inscription Unter dem Kissen [Under the Pillow]— Ant. Pesne fecit 1706.
Oesterreicher says "A charming peasant girl in the window with her head resting on her right arm. Light and shadow have a splendid effect in this painting, the painter represented bare [bloße] nature. [He sure did.] * * The Count Algarotti bequeathed this painting to His Majesty the King.
Fritz also mentions that Algarotti offered him a Pesne painting in his last letter to Algarotti, which I assume was this one, so they had talked about it before and I'm not entirely sure if it was a formal last will thing from Algarotti or just coincided with his death.
Nevertheless, I have questions! Did Algarotti think that Fritz would simply like to have a Pesne painting or was the motif relevant innuendo? The inscription? And why on earth did Fritz bequeath it to Ulrike - did she come across it during a visit and she and Fritz talked about it? Inside joke? Does she have a connection to Algarotti at all or is it just the fact that Pesne painted it? It's not like Fritz didn't have hundreds of other paintings to give, so why this one?
Re: Various questions from Mildred
11. I am bequeathing to my sister, the Queen of Sweden, one of my golden boxes valued at 10,000 thalers, 20 buckets of Hungarian wine and a painting of Pesne in the Sanssouci Palace, which I received from Algarotti.
Of course I got curious, so I looked it up and it's apparently this one (in colour), with the inscription Unter dem Kissen [Under the Pillow]— Ant. Pesne fecit 1706.
Oesterreicher says "A charming peasant girl in the window with her head resting on her right arm. Light and shadow have a splendid effect in this painting, the painter represented bare [bloße] nature. [He sure did.] *
* The Count Algarotti bequeathed this painting to His Majesty the King.
Fritz also mentions that Algarotti offered him a Pesne painting in his last letter to Algarotti, which I assume was this one, so they had talked about it before and I'm not entirely sure if it was a formal last will thing from Algarotti or just coincided with his death.
Nevertheless, I have questions! Did Algarotti think that Fritz would simply like to have a Pesne painting or was the motif relevant innuendo? The inscription? And why on earth did Fritz bequeath it to Ulrike - did she come across it during a visit and she and Fritz talked about it? Inside joke? Does she have a connection to Algarotti at all or is it just the fact that Pesne painted it? It's not like Fritz didn't have hundreds of other paintings to give, so why this one?