Self-Portrait in front of the Easel with Daughters Henriette Joyard and Marie de Rège

In this self-portrait, the eminent Prussian court painter Antoine Pesne (1683–1757) appears to have been suddenly interrupted at his work.

He looks up from the easel toward the viewer with a serious, but good-natured expression.

The elderly painter delicately holds his palette and brushes – the tools of his trade – in his left hand.

His two daughters stand beside him like muses, inspiring and taking part in their father’s work.

Henriette, herself a painter, looks towards the left at her father’s canvas.

Marie, the widow of Prussian grenadier captain Jacques Azémar de Rège, joins her father in gazing out at the viewer,

a small Bolognese dog on her lap.

In the lower right corner of the picture, we see two books that appear casually tossed down on the fabric. One of them can, however, be identified as Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a common source of material and inspiration for Pesne’s work. The volume rests on a pale blue sheet of paper with a chalk drawing, probably of Venus and Cupid.

Next to the books lies a plaster sculpture of a head that recalls the famous Apollo Belvedere in Rome, reminding us that this otherwise vaguely rendered space is in fact an artist’s studio.

The painting is executed in Pesne’s characteristic warm colours and pastel tones. Pesne exerted a decisive influence on the artistic culture of Friedrich the Great’s court as of 1740 and created some of the most important works of the ‘Frederician Rococo’.