ملف:Adolph von Menzel - A Flute Concert of Frederick the Great at Sanssouci - WGA15051.jpg

(b. 1815, Breslau, d. 1905, Berlin)

A Flute Concert of Frederick the Great at Sanssouci 1852 Oil on canvas, 142 x 205 cm Nationalgalerie, Berlin

Menzel's oils of the 1850s and 1860s presented dazzling tableaux of a vastly wealthy, conspicuously refined Potsdam court under Frederick the Great (1712-1786), depicted as if on the same gargantuan plane as Versailles, in a Prussian palace more French than the one near Paris. Canvases such as A Flute Concert were images the monarch may have wished painted in his own day, yet none of his artists were up to this task.

The Flute Concert depicts the king playing the flute in his music room at Sanssouci. He was a gifted musician who played the transverse flute. He composed 100 sonatas for the flute as well as four symphonies. His court musicians included C. P. E. Bach, Johann Joachim Quantz, and Franz Benda. A meeting with Johann Sebastian Bach in 1747 in Potsdam led to Bach writing The Musical Offering.

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Author: MENZEL, Adolph von Title: A Flute Concert of Frederick the Great at Sanssouci Time-line: 1851-1900 School: German Form: painting