Christiane von Pfalz-Zweibrücken, Fürstin von Waldeck und Pyrmont (1725-1816)

Johann Georg Ziesenis was a German court portraitist who worked primarily at the Hanoverian and neighboring German courts. Christiane von Pfalz-Zweibrücken, Fürstin von Waldeck und Pyrmont (1725–1816), depicted here around 1748, was a princess of the Wittelsbach house of Pfalz-Zweibrücken who married Karl August Friedrich, Prince of Waldeck-Pyrmont, in 1741. Ziesenis painted widely across the Protestant German principalities, and his portraits of princesses and court ladies are characterized by the formal elegance of German Rococo portraiture combined with a certain directness inherited from the northern European tradition.

The princess is depicted in court dress with the formal bearing expected of her rank. Ziesenis's technique combines the smooth rendering of silk and jewels characteristic of Rococo court portraiture with the direct, clear-eyed characterization of his northern German training.