Background

Antoine Pesne was born on March 29, 1683, in Paris, Ile-de-France, France. He was the son of Thomas Pesne, the painter, and Hélène de Lafosse. His uncle from his mother's side was Charles de Lafosse.

Education

Antoine Pesne began training as an artist under his father and his uncle Charles de la Fosse. Later he attended the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture (Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture) in France, where he received a scholarship, taking him to Italy for studies. From 1705 to 1710, he studied at the French Academy (Académie de France) in Rome.

Career

In 1711 Antoine Pesne attracted the attention of the then king of Prussia, Frederick I, with a portrait he painted of a German nobleman while in Venice and was invited to work at the Prussian court in Berlin. After the king’s death in 1713, he worked at the courts of Dresden and Dessau, later visiting London and Paris, where he was received into the Academie Royale as a full member in 1720. While in Paris, Pesne painted the portrait of the prominent collector and print connoisseur Pierre-Jean Mariette (1723, Musee Carnavalct, Paris), who had significant international connections with artists and patrons.

Pesne’s French credentials and his previous service at the Prussian court in Berlin would have piqued the interest of Frederick II, recently returned from exile and reinstated as crown-prince at the Prussian seat of Rheinsberg, the cradle of the Frederican Rococo. As the future Frederick the Great was already collecting works by fete galante painters, such as Antoine Wat¬teau and Nicolas Lancret, Pesne began to assimilate this style into his own work after he returned to the Prussian court. The figures he contributed to a collaborative painting made with Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff of the Schloss Rheinsberg (1737, Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin) are in this manner.

Most of his decorative work at Rheinsberg and later at Berlin and Potsdam, however, took up allegorical and mythological themes, an example of which is the ceiling he painted for the audience room at Sanssouci with the subject Zephyr Crowns Flora (1747, in situ). Although his talents were not as distinguished as those of Watteau or Lancret, Pesne was not a slavish imitator.

Many of his portraits adapt French modes of portrayal with pleasing results, such as The Dancer Barbara Cam- panini (c. 1745, Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin), which employs principles of complement and contrast in the pose and architectural setting to accentu¬ate the charms of his sitter, a famous dancer from Venice. It was originally installed behind Frederick’s desk in his study at Schloss Charlottenburg, a fitting expression of the enlightened monarch’s refined tastes in the arts.

Achievements

• Antonio Pesne is credited as one of the founders of Rococo painting, and found considerable fame and recognition for his detailed post-Baroque portraits. He also produced a number of ambitious large-scale ceiling paintings, as well as a series on dancers and actresses who performed at the Berlin Opera.
  
  Pesne became famous for his portraits of the Prussian royal family and their households. Pesne's work can be found among the collections of institutions such as Charlottenburg, Rheinsberg, and Sanssouci Palaces, as well as many German museums.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • Ernst Friedrich Baron of the Inn and Knyphausen, Royal Prussian Minister

    1707

  • Fortune Teller

    1710

  • Geometrician

    1710

  • Family Portrait of Baron von Erlach

    1711

  • Portrait of the crown prince Friedrich Ludwig of Württemberg and his wife Henriette Marie of Brandenburg Schwedt

    1716

  • Nocturne

    1718

  • Markgraf Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg Schwedt

    1720

  • Portrait of Johann Melchior Dinglinger

    1721

  • Portrait of Mary Susanne Dinglinger, born Gutermann

    1721

  • Jean Mariette, Engraver

    1723

  • Nicolas Vleughels

    1725

  • Portrait of Christian August, Prince of Anhalt Zerbst, father of Catherine II of Russia.

    1725

  • Portrait of Jean Baptiste Gayot Dubuisson

    1725

  • Portrait of Henriette von Zerbsten

    1726

  • Anna Karolina Orzelska

    1728

  • Girl with Pigeons

    1728

  • Reception of August the Strong in the Berlin City Palaces

    1729

  • Heinrich von Podewils, Prussian statesman

    1731

  • Portrait of Frederick William I of Prussia

    1733

  • Princess Sophie Dorothea Marie with her ​​husband,Frederick William, Margrave of Brandenburg Schwedt

    1734

  • Jean Philippe Baratier presented by Minerva, German scholar

    1735

  • Frederick the Great

    1736

  • Louise Eleonore von Wreech

    1737

  • Portrait of Sophie Dorothea von Preußen

    1737

  • Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff

    1738

  • Isabel Cristina de Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel

    1739

  • Portrait of Elisabeth Christine von Braunschweig Bevern, Prussian queen

    1739

  • Elisabeth Christine

    1740

  • Frederick the Great as Crown Prince

    1740

  • Portrait of Frederick II

    1743

Interests

• Artists

  Hyacinthe Rigaud, Nicolas de Largillière

Connections

On January 5, 1710, Antoine Pesne married fourteen years old Ursule Anne Gayot-Dubuisson. They had two daughters.

Father:

Thomas Pesne

Mother:

Hélène de La Fosse

Spouse:

Ursule Anne Gayot-Dubuisson

Uncle:

Charles de La Fosse

Daughter:

Henriette Pesne

References

• Historical Dictionary of Rococo Art The Historical Dictionary of Rococo Art covers all aspects of Rococo art history through a chronology, an introductory essay, a review of the literature, an extensive bibliography, and over 350 cross-referenced dictionary entries on prominent Rococo painters, sculptors, decorative artists, architects, patrons, theorists, and critics, as well as major centers of artistic production.