Stroehling’s work in the royal collection allows us to trace a rare example of continuity between the masters of the dutch golden age and those of the early nineteenth century. Stroehling was brought up in dusseldorf where a magnificent collection of the polished, classicising and elegant works (often on copper) by artists such as adriaen van der werff (1659-1722) had been formed by johann wilhelm ii, elector palatine (1658-1716). Stroehling worked all over europe but spend much of the first two decades of the nineteenth century in london; between 1810 and 1820 he was even styled ‘historical painter to the prince of wales’. Stroehling’s work elsewhere tended to be life-sized portraiture, but the royal collection has an important group of small-scale portraits on copper, executed with fine detail and a glossy finish; joseph farington perceptively referred to them as ‘painted in a vanderwerfe manner’. Stroehling’s price for these ‘cabinet pictures’ was 200 guineas each, an impressive sum in the period even for a life-sized work. Date: circa 1810-1815. Dimensions: height: 18.9 cm (7.4 in); width: 16.1 cm (6.3 in). Medium: oil on copper. Collection: Royal Collection. L.A.Bennigsen by P.E.Stroehling (c.1810-15, Royal coll.)
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