A Chinese reverse mirror painting, Qing dynasty, Qianlong (1736-95).
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Depicting the Swedish Queen Lovisa Ulrica after a european painting but in a Chinese setting with a drape in the background and a bird in the foreground. Measurment 28x39 cm. Measurement with frame 32,5x53,5 cm.
Wear, the mirror glass tarnished.
Exhibitions
Compare reverse mirror paintings with similar set up with a curtain, a bird and an elegant lady in the exhibition of 'Från Kina till Europa' at Östasiatiska Museet in Stockholm, 1998-1999. From the Collection of Nordiska Museet.
Literature
Jan Wirgin; Från Kina till Europa, page 294. Image 303. Compare chinese reverse mirror painting depicting the King Adolf Frederick, made after a portrait by Lorens Pasch d.y. (1733-1805). This painting is today in the collection of Nordiska Museet. Jan Wirgin writes that there was a pendang to this one of Lovisa Ulrika made after an original by Antonie Pesne.
Kina Slott, Setterwall, Fogelmarck, Gyllenswärd, page 42.
More information
Lovisa Ulrika of Prussia (1720-1782), was the Queen of Sweden between 1751-1771 by her marriage to King Adolf Frederick. She was the queen mother during the reign of King Gustavus III.
Lovisa Ulrika was born in Berlin, as the daughter of Frederick William I of Prussia and his wife Sophia Dorothea of Hanover and was thus the younger sister of Wilhelmine of Bayreuth and Frederick the Great.
There is many connections between Lovisa Ulrica and the Swedish East India Company, maybe the most famous one is that one night in June in 1753 Lovisa Ulrika was bequeathed with an amazing gift, in one of the corners of the Drottningholm Palace Gardens the King Adolf Frederick had secretly built a Chinese Pavilion, filled with the finest the company could offer. Today the pavilion is known as “Kina Slott”. At this time this was the highest fashion, the Swedish East India Company imported vast amounts of tea, silk, spices, porcelain, lacquer objects, mirror paintings and tapestries. The palace was decorated with Swedish Rococo furniture mixed with imported Chinese Works of Art.