Anton Graff

This work is a version by the hand of Anton Graff after the portrait of the approximately eighty-year-old Louis de Silvestre, painted by Jean-Baptiste Greuze, which is now in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich (inv. no. FV 7). Greuze completed the original "to Sylvestre's great satisfaction" in 1753, who subsequently arranged for it to be admitted to the French Academy of Arts. A second version from the old Wettin estate, "possibly" by the same hand, is kept in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden (inv. no. 3412, today around 1780) and was listed in Berckenhagen's Catalogue Raisonné as cat. no. 1797. The present painting differs from the original in a striking way. According to Börsch-Supan, the gaze in the Greuze painting has something piercing about it, a tension that is emphasised by the compressed lips; there are also differences in the execution of the gold brocade and in the number of gold buttons and braids. This led Börsch-Supan to assume that our picture was not based on the Greuze painting, but rather on the engraving by Augustin de Saint-Aubin. However, he recognises the "inimitable style of the almost blind painter's age, who confidently handles the model." As Silvestre was the leading court painter in Dresden for thirty years from 1716-46, a long-lasting interest in his person as well as in the famous portrait preserving his memory is understandable - especially on the part of his later successor in office, Graff. With an expert opinion by Prof. Dr Helmut Börsch-Supan, Berlin, dated 27 September 2010.