The princelings portrayed by Anton Raphael Mengs on exhibition at the Uffizi

Opening at the Uffizi, in the Sala delle Nicchie, is an exhibition showcasing one of the Florence museum’s last purchases, made in 2016: a painting by one of the great masters of neoclassicism, Anton Raphael Mengs (Aussig, 1728 - Rome, 1779), depicting Ferdinand and Maria Anna of Habsburg-Lorraine, two children of Peter Leopold of Lorraine, archduke of Austria and Tuscany, and Marie Louise of Bourbon. This is an unfinished portrait depicting the future grand duke of Tuscany and his sister in contemporary dress: which appeared on the antiquarian market, it was purchased last year by the Uffizi Galleries given its links to the history of Tuscany and, above all, of the Pitti Palace: in fact, the painting is set in the Pitti Palace and is intended for the Palatine Gallery. We do not know if the work was entirely painted at the Pitti Palace, but we do know that the grand dukes lived there, as well as the two little princes, and that Mengs probably conceived the portrait among the halls of the palace.

Mengs was able to create it during a trip to Tuscany granted to him by King Charles III of Spain, for whom he was working at the time of the painting: the artist stayed in Tuscany between April 1770 and January 1771, and it was on that occasion that he created the work, which was moreover connected with Charles III in that the two Tuscan princes were his grandchildren on his mother’s side (Marie Louise of Bourbon was Charles III’s daughter), and the king himself had asked Mengs that, once the work was completed, portraits of the young grandchildren be sent to him (so much so that the exhibition is entitled proproi The Grandchildren of the King of Spain. Anton Raphael Mengs at the Pitti Palace). In fact, Mengs executed other works that he sent to Spain, which are now kept at the Prado and are on display in the exhibition.

“The task of a living museum,” says Uffizi director Eike Schmidt, “is to protect the works, to preserve memory, to transmit culture through exhibitions and research, but also to ’breathe’ the collections with targeted additions, intimately connected to the events of the city, the territory, the collection itself in which they will be found. Purchases, especially when so subtly motivated, are a fundamental part of the existence of a museum institution, all the more so if they are the result of research that ensures both their provenance and a fruitful dialogue with the pre-existing heritage.”

The exhibition curated, like the catalog published by Sillabe, by Matteo Ceriana and Steffi Roettgen, is promoted by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism with the Uffizi Galleries and Firenze Musei. It is open during the Uffizi’s usual public opening hours.

Image: Anton Raphael Mengs, Double Portrait of Archdukes Ferdinand and Maria Anna of Habsburg-Lorraine (1770-1771; oil on canvas; Florence, Uffizi Galleries, Palatine Gallery)

The princelings portrayed by Anton Raphael Mengs on exhibition at the Uffizi

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