Prinz Friedrich August II. (1696-1763)

Rosalba Carriera's 1714 portrait of Prince Friedrich August II of Saxony — the future Augustus III — was made when the prince was eighteen, already positioned as heir to one of the most powerful electoral houses of the Holy Roman Empire. The Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna holds this work, suggesting it entered Habsburg collections through dynastic exchange or later acquisition. Carriera's early portraits of the Saxon electoral family predate her Paris triumph of 1720 and reveal that her reputation had already crossed the Alps before she became an international celebrity. Friedrich August II would himself become a voracious art collector, and the Dresden Gemäldegalerie under his direction became one of Europe's greatest painting collections. This early portrait thus documents the beginning of a relationship between Carriera and the Saxon court that would yield some of the largest single-institution holdings of her work anywhere in the world.

An early Carriera work compared to her most celebrated pastels, this 1714 portrait shows her already in command of the blended flesh-tone technique that would define her style, though the handling of background and costume is perhaps less assured than in her peak years. The prince's youthful features are given appropriate formality through the wig and formal dress.