Absent Love in Pleasure Houses.

Frederick II of
Prussia as art collector and patron
Christoph Martin Vogtherr
King Frederick II of Prussia brought together one of the largest and most
important collections of eighteenth-century art in Europe. One wonders how far
his strong erotic interest in males determined the quality and scope of his
collection. When we try to imagine a `homosexual' Rococo collector, two possible
ways of reconciling our contemporary image of homosexuality with our
conception of Rococo art come readily to mind. The most obvious is, of course,
that the Rococo `homosexual' should collect images of men as immediate objects
of desire. Frederick II fulfils this expectation; when he looked out of his circular
study in Sanssouci Palace near Potsdam, he glanced at a Greek bronze boy,
reaching out towards him. Frederick had acquired the work in 1747 from the
counts of Liechtenstein in Vienna, at a time when it was already a famous piece. It
had been in the possession of the dukes of Mantua, of Charles I in Whitehall, and
also of Nicolas Fouquet at Vaux-le-Vicomte. In Vienna, the Adoring Youth had
originally been in the collection of Prince Eugen of Savoy, in his day one of the
better known sodomites in the European high aristocracy.
1
With the Adoring
Youth, Frederick thus purchased an icon of pederastic, male desire in males which
had already long been defined as such.
There is a second clear way to imagine a `homosexual' Rococo collection,
for the image of the `Rococo' period has always been determined by a notion of
femininity. According to this line of thought, the collector's taste would be
formed by a predilection for things precious, for the applied arts, for the low
genres in painting. Frederick II's early collecting profile also fits well at least
partially into this second suggested pattern. Not only was the Prussian king
known as an obsessive collector of snuff-boxes, but his collection of paintings is
still famous today for its works by Watteau and his pupils, contemporary genre
paintings with the particularly unheroic subject of more or less unconsummated
courtly love.
2
Both notions describe certain aspects of Frederick II's art collecting reasonably
well. At the same time, they have our modern image of the `homosexual' man as
their starting point, rather than eighteenth-century perceptions and they
potentially contradict one another. It seems an obvious and important goal for us
to get beyond a mere census of male nudes or marquetry cabinets in order to
assess the relevance to a collector's collection of his `homosexuality'. Indeed, a
collection should be understood as a complex and ambiguous medium that also
Art History ISSN 0141-6790 Vol. 24 No. 2 April 2001 pp. 231246
231 Association of Art Historians 2001. Published by Blackwell Publishers,
108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
conveys messages about the collector's erotic interests and fears, both conscious
and unconscious.
Whenever our investigations go beyond the `age of homosexuality', the results
will be less obvious than we might hope for and more puzzling. Our recent
categories of `homosexuality' and `heterosexuality' do not seem to help an insight
which has by now become commonplace. As a starting point for our inquiries one
might rather chose Halperin's four modes of pre-modern `homosexuality', which
still largely apply to the eighteenth century: `(1) effeminacy, (2) pederasty or ``active''
sodomy, (3) friendship or male love, and (4) passivity or inversion'.
3
Certainly, the
first three at least bear discussion in our context.
Frederick II of Prussia is an ideal and well-documented object for our
inquiry, because he is both extremely typical as a figure of the eighteenth century
and as a collector, and at the same time one of outstanding importance.
4
We know
enough about his collections and the way he arranged artworks in his palaces to
examine questions of object choice and gender in context, and to check notions
sketched so far against Frederick's practice. We will have to look closely at
Frederick's strategies to locate the images of love in his palaces and gardens and
to determine the kind of love that these sites construct.
In this essay, I will not differentiate between works commissioned by the king
and those he collected. As a matter of fact, it is not useful to distinguish between
Frederick as an art collector and as a patron. He always collected works of art for
specific places and stopped collecting once the relevant apartment or palace or
pavilion was filled. Art was acquired for a context or rather, to create a context.
5
Before we look at Frederick's most famous and most important palace,
namely Sanssouci, we first have to turn to his biography, which can be regarded as
a determining feature for virtually all aspects of his patronage.
6
In fact, in his
History of Sexuality, Foucault seems to describe an eighteenth-century type
resembling Frederick most closely. Foucault introduced a set of typical characters,
to mark the change of relationships occurring inside the family and around the
education of children in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
7
All of
them appear in Frederick's immediate environment. There is Frederick's father
Frederick William the so-called `Soldier King' Foucault's `impotent, sadistic,
perverse husband' stern creator of the Prussian army, penurious, one who
collected exceptionally tall young men as soldiers, beat his wife and children, and
demanded love through violence. Next there is his wife Sophie Dorothea,
Foucault's `nervous woman', his `frigid wife, the indifferent mother', who retired
from court as far as possible, presenting Frederick at her own palace his only
access to ordinary late baroque `court culture' and intellectual interests. At the
same time she was strangely indifferent to her son, to the degree that she left him
exposed to his father's violence. Frederick's sister Wilhelmine (plate 25), like her
brother a `precocious and already exhausted child' (in Foucault's words), also
embodies the model of an `hysterical or neurasthenic girl', as one senses
immediately when reading her memoirs.
8
Surrounded by this set of characters
Frederick grew up as can be expected, becoming Foucault's `young homosexual
who rejects marriage or neglects his wife', the latter to an extreme degree. If
Frederick's upbringing is characteristic for his period, his collecting can probably
also serve as a good example of the taste of his time.
FREDERICK II OF PRUSSIA AS ART COLLECTOR AND PATRON
232 Association of Art Historians 2001
Frederick's biography also explains some of his very specific features as a
collector.
9
The formative experience for Frederick and possibly also his family
was the so-called `Katte affair', which occurred when, in 1730, Frederick tried to
flee to England with his lover Hans Herrmann von Katte. The two were caught
and both were sentenced to death for treason. The sentence of Frederick, as crown
prince, was commuted to imprisonment, and he was forced to watch the
execution of his lover. Frederick was set free only when he agreed to marry and to
settle in the provincial town of Rheinsberg, north of Berlin, where he waited for
his father's death in order to ascend to the throne.
Frederick's personal geography as king was also important. The palace in
25 Antoine Pesne, Frederick and His Sister Wilhelmine as Children. Stiftung Preuische
Schlo sser und Ga rten Berlin-Brandenburg, Berlin, Charlottenburg Palace. Photo: Stiftung
Preuische Schlo sser und Ga rten Berlin-Brandenburg/Fotoarchiv.
FREDERICK II OF PRUSSIA AS ART COLLECTOR AND PATRON
Association of Art Historians 2001 233
Berlin full of associations with his youth and his father became of absolutely
minor importance. In 1740, after his accession, Frederick started instead to build
a residence in Charlottenburg, close to but still at a safe distance from the
haunted capital of Berlin.
10
His choice might have been influenced by the fact that
Charlottenburg had been the summer residence of his grandmother Sophie
Charlotte, who was close to him both in her philosophical interest and in her
leanings towards her own sex.
11
Charlottenburg occupied this central place only
briefly, however, for already by 1744 Frederick had started to follow a completely
different strategy, actively turning his attention to one of his most hated places:
the Wu

ster Berg (meaning barren mountain) near Potsdam, where Frederick's

father had led his family on endless weekend shooting parties.
Frederick's original plan foresaw having a terraced vineyard built with the
vault of his future tomb as part of the structure. Only while the terraces were
going up did he decide to build a royal pleasure house, a maison de plaisance, on
top Sanssouci Palace.
12
Its name is inscribed prominently on the entablature on
the garden fac ade, supported by bacchic herms (plate 26). The name is meant as a
programme. This is the place where the king was to recover from his govermental
duties, where he was `sans souci'. In a highly symbolic fashion, Frederick chose
the place which had been his father's, perhaps to contrast their respective modes
of leisure shooting versus philosophy.
13
But we can also think of Foucault again,
in whose writing the term `souci' features prominently as the `souci de soi', the
attempt to control and master one's own (male) desires, a notion taken from
26 Sanssouci Palace, Inscription on the garden fac ade. Photo: Stiftung Preuische Schlo sser und
Ga rten Berlin-Brandenburg/Fotoarchiv.
FREDERICK II OF PRUSSIA AS ART COLLECTOR AND PATRON
234 Association of Art Historians 2001
antique sources which were partly also present in Frederick's library. At Sanssouci
the king apparently wanted to be free from this claim to inner (and outer) mastery
of his body and self.
It is telling that the inscription was put on the garden fac ade, for the palace
offered a very different aspect when first being approached. Its cour d'honneur is
modelled along the lines of Louis XIV's Grand Trianon, the royal maison de
plaisance par excellence, as a one-storeyed, classical building. From this `official'
side one entered the vestibule, where the classical order of the outside was
continued; yet here already the attentive guest could catch a first glimpse of things
to come in the three overdoor reliefs that featured bacchic scenes. The vestibule,
in this way, offers the same strange contrast between Sanssouci's two fac ades in a
condensed form. The next room is the oval-shaped marble chamber, another
predominantly classical interior with a standard iconographic programme,
consisting of marble sculptures of Apollo and Venus and stucco scenes of the
arts on top of the entablature. This programme defines Sanssouci as the place
where the arts are cultivated, a palace of otium. Frederick himself compared this
room to the Pantheon in Rome.
14
Given the different shapes, sizes and details of
the two interiors, this can only be meant as an iconographic reference: the marble
room is a space of tolerance where different beliefs and tastes coexist. It also offers
the first and most splendid view of the garden, which is here framed by an
official and costly classical architecture.
At this point, one would expect to have the choice between two different
directions; towards the king's apartment on the one side, towards the queen's (or
the mistress's) on the other. At Sanssouci, this usual symmetrical structure is kept
only from the outside, for while the eastern half of the palace does house the
king's apartment, the western half is divided up into five guest apartments, all
independently accessible through the garden (plate 27). Frederick's wife only
visited the palace once, while her husband was on a military campaign. She must
have realized that in architectural terms as well there was no place for her. In
27 Ground plan of Sanssouci Palace. Photo: Stiftung Preuische Schlo sser und Ga rten Berlin-
Brandenburg/Fotoarchiv.
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Association of Art Historians 2001 235
its groundplan, as in court reality, Sanssouci was a palace without women. At the
same time, though, women are emphatically present in the decoration and the
furnishing of the palace.
One entered the king's apartments through the first anteroom, which also
served as a dining room at a time when permanent dining tables were not yet used
in Prussia. As is usual for this type of room, it is furnished with a rich variety of
paintings, a means both to politely entertain waiting guests or dining friends and
at the same time to display royal splendour. Already in this room, the observer
might sense some of the specific features of Frederick's collection, but only as a
matter of degree, not of kind. The room comprises a large number of important
paintings, but hardly any `Old Masters' of royal importance (a painting by
Antoine Coypel might be the only candidate; the authorship of La Fosse in two
other cases was unknown) and only rather few history paintings. Instead, genre
painting and, in particular, the fe tes galantes of Watteau and Pater take a
prominent part. The arrangement does not seem to convey a specific message, and
even the selection of paintings and painters only becomes telling when seen in
context together with the following rooms.
The next room of the apartments, the `Chambre de parade' or concert room, is
the decisive turning point within the royal apartments, if one looks at it with our
questions in mind (plate 28). This is why we have to pause here for a moment. In a
fully-fledged baroque apartment, a second anteroom or a reception room would
have followed the first. Frederick's apartments break with that custom and
28 Sanssouci Palace, Concert Room. Photo: Stiftung Preuische Schlo sser und Ga rten Berlin-
Brandenburg/Fotoarchiv.
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236 Association of Art Historians 2001
introduce a concert or music room at this point, a feature which is sometimes
simply added, and at other times as in Charlottenburg or here at Sanssouci
replaces elements in the usual sequence of rooms. Frederick's concert rooms thus
constitute a highly personal statement, which we can also say about their
decoration. The room's dedication to music invites a freer and more floating
decoration than in its predecessors. In light of Frederick's passion for music he
called his own flute the `principessa'
15
it is also a likely place for a very personal
arrangement. In Charlottenburg's concert room Watteau's Shop sign of Gersaint
constitutes such a statement; at Sanssouci, the sequence of five large history
paintings by the court painter Antoine Pesne is of a similar importance.
Pesne's works are intimately linked with the wall decoration of which they are
an integral part. The painter was ordered to paint five scenes from Ovid's
Metamorphoses, one large squarish field on the north wall opposite the two
windows into the garden and two narrower paintings on each of the two side
walls.
16
The central scene depicts how the hunter Acteaon unwittingly spots the
bathing Diana and is transformed into a deer by the goddess, then killed by his
own hunting dogs.
17
Erotic viewing is shown as a sacrilege, bodily love is
forbidden, and this rule is strictly enforced. The nude female body is a source of
danger, a field not to be trespassed, even if as it was with Actaeon the
transgression is not at all intended. Quite tellingly, Ovid himself introduces the
episode by stressing that Acteaon's death is Fortuna's fault and not the hunter's.
While this means that we are interpreting a standard scene from classical
mythology in a far-reaching fashion, we should remember that the choice of
subject is striking, especially given the room's function. In fact, the subject was
not correctly identified for a long time, because only a recent restoration
uncovered the figure of Actaeon, whom nobody seems to have missed during his
absence.
The two scenes on the left, on the wall towards the first anteroom, depict
Pygmalion and Galatea (plate 29) on the left, Vertumnus and Pomona on the
right.
18
The former, at least, also constitutes a remarkable choice of subject, for the
story talks about the conversion of a woman-hater. Pygmalion is only able to love a
woman because she is virtually his own creation, formed with his own hands and
brought to life by Venus: `Pygmalion had seen how women lead lives full of crimes.
He stayed lonely and unmarried, repulsed by the faults which nature had awarded
to women's hearts so amply. For a long time, he had not been in bed with a
woman.' On the opposite wall, Pan and Syrinx are shown on the left, Bacchus and
Ariadne (plate 30) on the right.
19
This pair contrasts an unsuccessful attempt to
rape an elusive lover with a deserted lover comforted by a god.
The concert room at Sanssouci is the threshold between the official and the
more `private' rooms of Frederick's apartments. Frederick intended to make a
clear, although not too precise, statement about the nature of love at this specific
point in the sequence of rooms, where his own, private realm began. As displayed
in the paintings, love is either terrifying, irreal or utterly unsuccessful. Women
cannot or should not be approached. The most hopeful scene, featuring a deus ex
machina rescuing the desolate lover Ariadne, is immediately adjacent to the door
leading into the king's study and bedroom. The king himself, turned away from
the love of women, deserted by his love, waits for the god to rescue him.
FREDERICK II OF PRUSSIA AS ART COLLECTOR AND PATRON
Association of Art Historians 2001 237
This adjacent room in Frederick's apartment, his bedroom and study, was
remodelled immediately after his death in neo-classical taste. According to all we
know, this room did not contain any more explicit imagery, but rather had an
abstract, ornamental quality. A small bust on the chimney piece of Marcus
29 (left) Antoine Pesne, Pygmalion and Galatea, Stiftung Preuische Schlo sser und Ga rten
Berlin-Brandenburg, Potsdam, Sanssouci Palace. Photo: Stiftung Preuische Schlo sser und Ga rten
Berlin-Brandenburg/Fotoarchiv.
30 (right) Antoine Pesne, Bacchus and Ariadne, Stiftung Preuische Schlo sser und Ga rten
Berlin-Brandenburg, Potsdam, Sanssouci Palace. Photo: Stiftung Preuische Schlo sser und Ga rten
Berlin-Brandenburg/Fotoarchiv.
FREDERICK II OF PRUSSIA AS ART COLLECTOR AND PATRON
238 Association of Art Historians 2001
Aurelius, the philosopheremperor, may, however, have served as a strong
reminder of Frederick's intention to control his passions.
The remaining two rooms of the king's apartments were only connected with
the rooms so far described through a hidden door leading to a narrow corridor off
the enfilade: the circular library of the king and the so-called `small gallery', a space
for the king's art collection. This gallery featured fifteen paintings by Watteau and
his school, all classic fe tes galantes. They form a unified group depicting an ideal
world of `natural' courtly love between men and women, but not within the
domain of the heterosexual couple. Love here is experienced in a group as an
harmonic social activity. Watteau's art is deeply melancholic, he depicts a world of
promise and dream rather than an idealized reality.
20
Within the context of
Sanssouci the paintings stand for the thinkable alternative, the ideal world of love
within the courtly world. Lancret's Embarcation for the Island of Cythera (plate
31) forms the centre of the paintings in the gallery. It marks the point where courtly
love blends with the mythical, the Greek island of love, Cythera.
While the small gallery tries to present a synthesis between norms of society
and love, Frederick's library offers a far more radical, but deeply hopeless vision.
The library was by far the most personal room in Sanssouci. The whole of the rest
of the palace could be visited when the king was not in residence; the library was
the only exception, a room solely and entirely for the king. Frederick had the
room modelled after the library in his country house at Rheinsberg, where he had
lived before his ascension to the throne. The library quotes this earlier period of
his life. In his library, Frederick was surrounded by allegories of the arts and by
four antique busts, which were at that time identified as Homer, Socrates, Apollo
and an unspecified philosopher. Here, Frederick could live as a philosopher or,
rather, as a philosopher king.
When he looked out of the window, he saw the Adoring Youth (plate 32),
which had already long been identified as Antinous, the young lover of Emperor
Hadrian.
21
Frederick compared himself with the Roman philosopheremperor
and looked out onto his lover in the distance. Antinous was mourned by Hadrian
after he had drowned in the Nile, and the emperor had monuments erected for his
lover all through the empire. Frederick emulated Hadrian by displaying the bronze
Antinous, which could at the same time be read as a memorial to Frederick's own
lover Katte. The library at Sanssouci had to be built `like in Rheinsberg'.
22
Extrapolated back to Rheinsberg, the position of the Adoring Youth outside
Frederick's library window there would have been right in the lake. This is at the
same time the right place for the drowned youth and mirrors how unreachable
both love and his lover Katte had become for Frederick. In the library, the
arrangement is in part highly personal through the parallel drawn between
Hadrian/Antinous and Frederick/Katte and through the distance to the object
longed for and in part conventional through Frederick's comparison of himself
with one of the wise emperors of antiquity.
From the library, Frederick could only see the Adoring Youth; the rest of the
terrace was screened by lattice pavillions.
23
From the outside, however, the
combination of the bronze Antinous with Frederick's tomb (plate 33) becomes
immediately obvious.
24
Here, Frederick wanted to be buried `like a philosopher'
next to a symbolic image of the beloved.
25
His tomb was crowned by a sculpture
FREDERICK II OF PRUSSIA AS ART COLLECTOR AND PATRON
Association of Art Historians 2001 239
of Flora, the goddess of spring: both an apt ornament for a garden terrace and a
secular image of resurrection. More puzzling, though, is the choice of subject for
her counterpart on the other side of the upper terrace: a similar marble sculpture
showing Cleopatra committing suicide (plate 34).
Cleopatra held particular importance for Frederick, who commissioned the
31 Nicolas Lancret, The Embarcation for the Island of Cythera, Stiftung Preuische Schlo sser
und Ga rten Berlin-Brandenburg, Berlin, Sanssouci Palace. Photo: Stiftung Preuische Schlo sser
und Ga rten Berlin-Brandenburg/Fotoarchiv.
FREDERICK II OF PRUSSIA AS ART COLLECTOR AND PATRON
240 Association of Art Historians 2001
32 View from the library onto the (covered) `Adoring Youth', Sanssouci Palace. Photo: the
author.
33 Tomb of Frederick II on the terrace of Sanssouci Palace, with the sculpture of Flora by
Franc ois Gaspard Adam. Photo: the author.
FREDERICK II OF PRUSSIA AS ART COLLECTOR AND PATRON
Association of Art Historians 2001 241
composer Karl Heinrich Graun to write the opera Cleopatra and Caesar in 1742
for the opening of the Berlin Opera House. The libretto was modelled on
Corneille's Death of Pompeius. It does not include Cleopatra's suicide, but rather
tells the love story of Cleopatra and Caesar.
26
Cleopatra falls in love with Caesar
and drops her lover Arsaces. Caesar follows the advice of his friend Lentulus: in
order to get permission for the marriage, he pretends to the Roman senate that he
only intends to marry her to expand the power of the Roman empire. Cleopatra
reads Caesar's letter to the senate and feels betrayed. After many twists and turns,
plots and subplots, Caesar and Cleopatra marry. The personal importance of this
story for Frederick must have been rather on the side of Cleopatra than on the side
of Caesar: Cleopatra feels betrayed in the words of the libretto, a `victim of
attack and treason',
27
throws her crown at Caesar's feet and proclaims: `Even
without it, I still have the heart of a queen.'
28
And when she later starts believing
Caesar, she declares: `His attempt to rape me will be in vain. Even if my hands are
bound, my heart is free.'
29
Cleopatra is depicted as a woman in love, caught
between political conflicts and court intrigues. She is cautious, but manages to
stay independent and true to her own emotions. Her most extreme step in this
respect is her suicide, which could have made sense for Frederick in combination
with Antinous and Flora.
In Frederick's context, love for males seems so far to be depicted positively but
only rarely, while love for women is dangerous, frustrating or forbidden. This is,
however, only part of the picture.
30
For Frederick apparently owned a whole
34 Franc ois Gaspard Adam, sculpture of Cleopatra on the terrace of Sanssouci Palace. Photo:
Stiftung Preuische Schlo sser und Ga rten Berlin-Brandenburg/Fotoarchiv.
FREDERICK II OF PRUSSIA AS ART COLLECTOR AND PATRON
242 Association of Art Historians 2001
group of works considered pornographic and which were removed from the
palaces later during his reign.
31
It has been plausibly argued that one of them was
Watteau's painting of a woman receiving an enema, which was paraphrased in
Berlin by Antoine Pesne (plate 35). Voltaire describes a painting that he saw in
Sanssouci as depicting an orgy.
32
According to our standards, this group must
have included heterosexual pornographic images.
33
Yet women could also become objects of identification (like Ariadne or
Cleopatra), as well as emotional substitutes. The most interesting example arises
from Frederick's relationship with his favourite sister Wilhelmine. Ten years after
her death in 1758, he had a memorial structure built in the gardens of Sanssouci the
Temple of Friendship (plate 36).
34
The open, round temple houses a sculpture of
Frederick's sister that was executed after a painting by Pesne showing Wilhelmine as
a pilgrim to the island of love. Attached to each of the surrounding pairs of columns
are relief medallions, depicting famous antique male couples, `heroes of friendship'
in Frederick's own words.
35
The building follows Voltaire's poem The Temple of
Friendship of 1732, which Frederick is known to have read by September 1737.
36
Voltaire describes a similar structure in a grove, far removed from the court, with
the names and depictions of pairs of friends from antiquity on its fac ade. Frederick
himself probably sketched a first draught for the structure, and in 1773 he sent a
drawing of the built temple to Voltaire.
Love between siblings is here equated with male lovers from antiquity. In his
reading of Voltaire, Frederick stressed the distance in time to true love between
men: `You give the example of a virtue which down to our days has sadly only
35 Antoine Pesne, Erotic Scene, Stiftung Preuische Schlo sser und Ga rten Berlin-Brandenburg,
Berlin, Charlottenburg Palace. Photo: Stiftung Preuische Schlo sser und Ga rten Berlin-
Brandenburg/Fotoarchiv.
FREDERICK II OF PRUSSIA AS ART COLLECTOR AND PATRON
Association of Art Historians 2001 243
existed in the fable.'
37
Ideal love between men, it seems, could for Frederick only
have been attained with his sister, who as a sexually unapproachable woman is
the ideal man, rather than a real woman. In a similar vein, Voltaire warns in his
poem that love would destroy (heterosexual) friendship.
Through the selection and placement of the artworks in his possession
Frederick continously made statements about love. It is not surprising, but still
needs to be stressed, that we do not encounter any kind of reflection on the
situation of a repressed or oppressed `homosexual' in his collection. Instead, in the
more private rooms of his apartments, Frederick presents himself as a man
erotically attracted to both sexes, but longing for male love. Women are
represented in several distinct roles: as dangerous and treacherous figures, as
general symbols of forbidden erotic pleasures, as successful actors on the stage of
courtly love in the manner of Watteau's paintings, as substitutes for male love; or,
in their role as rejected lovers, as possible objects of identification and sympathy.
By contrast, men worthy of love are distant in time or place.
Sanssouci could not fulfil the promise of its name, as Frederick himself
acknowledged, saying of his already completed tomb vault next to the palace:
`When I'll be there, I'll be sans souci.'
38
Instead, the troublesome field of sexual
pleasures and the unobtainable love of men are both manifestly present in his
palaces and collections.
Christoph Martin Vogtherr
Stiftung Preuische Schlo sser und Ga rten
Berlin-Brandenburg
36 Temple of Friendship, Potsdam. Photo: the author.
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244 Association of Art Historians 2001
Notes
1 N. Hackla nder, `Der Betende Knabe Eine
Antike auf Wanderschaft', in G. Zimmer and N.
Hackla nder (eds), Der Betende Knabe. Original
und Experiment, Frankfurt am Main, 1997, pp.
2534. On Frederick's collection of antiquities:
K. Parlasca, `Die Potsdamer Antikensammlungen
im 18. Jahrhundert', in Antikensammlungen im
18. Jahrhundert, Berlin 1981 (Frankfurter
Forschungen zur Kunst 9), pp. 21129. This so-
called `Adoring Youth' was one of Frederick's
very few acquisitions of antique sculpture which
was not bought en bloc.
2 On Frederick II and Watteau: G. Bartoschek,
`Friedrich II. als Sammler von Gema lden', in
Friedrich II. und die Kunst, exhib. cat., Staatliche
Schlo sser und Ga rten Potsdam-Sanssouci,
Potsdam, 1986, 2 vols, vol. 1, pp. 8699;
H. Bo rsch-Supan, `Friedrich der Groe und
Watteau', in Margaret Morgan Graselli and
Pierre Rosenberg, Watteau 16841721, exhib.
cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington;
Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris;
Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin, 1984/1985,
pp. 55362.
3 D.M. Halperin, `How to do the History of Male
Homosexuality', GLQ, vol. 6, 2000, no. 1,
pp. 87123, 92.
4 On Frederick as art collector, see P. Seidel,
Friedrich der Groe und die bildende Kunst, 2nd
edn, Leipzig/Berlin, 1922; Friedrich II. und die
Kunst, exhib. cat., op. cit. (note 2).
5 This was first shown in 1986 for several rooms
in the destroyed Potsdam city palace. It is typical
for Frederick at least in his earlier years as a
king that his picture arrangements are highly
ironic and at the same time try to link past times
and distant places with Frederick's immediate
environment. For example, he combines French
fe tes galantes with portraits of his own court
dancers to link the ideal world of Watteau with
his own and to infuse it with hope: H. Bo rsch-
Supan, `Friedrich des Groen Umgang mit
Bildern', Zeitschrift des deutschen Vereins fu r
Kunstwissenschaft, vol. 42, 1988, pp. 2332.
6 For the vast literature on Frederick II, see H. and
E. Henning, Bibliographie Friedrich der Grosse
17861986, Berlin/New York, 1988.
7 M. Foucault, Histoire de la sexualite , vol. 1:
La volonte de savoir, Paris, 1976, p. 1456.
8 Wilhelmine von Bayreuth. Eine preuische
Ko nigstochter. Glanz und Elend am Hofe des
Soldatenko nigs in den Memoiren der Markgra fin
Wilhelmine von Bayreuth, Frankfurt am Main,
1990.
9 On homosexuality in eighteenth-century Prussia
and Frederick's role, see J.D. Steakley, `Sodomy
in Enlightenment Prussia: From Execution to
Suicide', in Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 16,
1988, pp. 16375.
10 M. Ku hn, Schlo Charlottenburg, Berlin, 1970,
2 vols (Die Bauwerke und Kunstdenkma ler von
Berlin 2,1); T. Eggeling, Die Wohnungen
Friedrichs des Groen im Schlo Charlottenburg,
Berlin, 1978 (Aus Berliner Schlo ssern. Kleine
Schriften 5).
11 Sophie Charlotte und ihr Schlo, exhib. cat.,
Stiftung Preuische Schlo sser und Ga rten Berlin-
Brandenburg, Berlin, 1999.
12 D. Karg, Die Entwicklungsgeschichte der
Terrassenanlage und des Parterres vor dem
Schlo Sanssouci, 2nd edn, Potsdam-Sanssouci
1994 (Wissenschaftliche Reihe der Stiftung
Schlo sser und Ga rten Potsdam-Sanssouci 1),
pp. 1419. For the best analysis of Sanssouci as
a maison de plaisance, see D. von Frank, Die
`maison de plaisance'. Ihre Entwicklung in
Frankreich und Rezeption in Deutschland,
Mu nchen, 1989 (Beitra ge zur Kunstwissenschaft
27), pp. 15173.
13 M. Delon, `The Priest, the Philosopher, and
Homosexuality in Enlightenment France', in R.P.
Maccubbin (ed.), 'Tis Nature's Fault.
Unauthorized Sexuality during the
Enlightenment, Cambridge, 1985, pp. 12231.
14 Frederick II, `Eloge du Baron de Knobelsdorff. /
Geda chtnisrede auf den Tod Knobelsdorffs.', in
`Zum Maler und zum groen Architekten
geboren'. Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff
16991753, exhib. cat. Berlin, Stiftung Preuische
Schlo sser und Ga rten Berlin-Brandenburg, Berlin,
1999, pp. 1014, p. 13.
15 Wilhelmine von Bayreuth, op. cit. (note 8),
p. 219.
16 On scenes from Ovid in Frederick's palaces:
S. Badstu bner-Gro ger, `Die Ovid-Galerie in den
Neuen Kammern zu Potsdam', Acta historiae
artium academiae Scientiarum Hungaricarum,
vol. 20, 1974, pp. 27196; Eggeling, Die
Wohnungen Friedrichs des Groen, op. cit.
(note 10), p. 22.
17 Ovid, Metamorphoses, III, 138252.
18 ibid., X, 243297; XIV, 622697, 765771.
19 ibid., I, 689712; VIII, 170182.
20 On this interpretation of Watteau, see R.G.
Saisselin, `The Rococo as a Dream of Happiness',
Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 19,
no. 2, 1960, pp. 14552.
21 The sculpture was equally identified as
Ganymede, a figure of recurrent importance for
Frederick. Ganymede was depicted on the ceiling
painting of his Rheinsberg library and also in the
marble room at the Neues Palais. On the earlier
identifications of the sculpture: Hackla nder (note
1). The best eighteenth-century source on its
interpretation as Antinous: Matthias Oesterreich,
Beschreibung und Erkla rung der Grupen, Statu en,
ganzen und halben Brust-Stu cke, Basreliefs,
Urnen und Vasen von Marmor, Bronze und Bley,
sowohl von antiker als moderner Arbeit, welche
die Sammlung Sr. Majesta t, des Ko nigs von
FREDERICK II OF PRUSSIA AS ART COLLECTOR AND PATRON
Association of Art Historians 2001 245
Preuen, ausmachen [. . .], Berlin, 1775, p. 21, no.
113: `Antinous, in der Stellung, wie er sich, einem
zur Genesung des Adrian gethanenen Gelu bde
zufolge, in den Nilflu stu rzen will. Aus
Erkenntlichkeit lie dieser Kayser verschiedene,
dem Andenken des Antinous gewidmete, Tempel
bauen, und sehr viele Statu en und Bu sten, nach
welchen man ihn nachgemacht hat, errichten.'
22 Von Frank, Die `maison de plaisance', op. cit.
(note 12), p. 169.
23 The most convincing interpretation of the
sculpture programme (as free masonic) so far: A.
von Buttlar, `Sanssouci und der ``Ewige Osten''.
Freimaurerische Aspekte im Garten Friedrichs des
Groen', Die Gartenkunst, vol. 6, 1994, part 2,
pp. 21926.
24 The only attempt to analyse erotic aspects of
Frederick's gardens stays on the surface: M.
Niedermeier, Erotik in der Gartenkunst, Leipzig,
1995, pp. 1404.
25 H.-J. Giersberg, Die Ruhesta tte Friedrichs des
Groen zu Sanssouci, Berlin, 1991, pp. 39, 47.
26 Programme booklet of the Staatsoper Unter den
Linden, Berlin, 1992, including the original
libretto of the opera. I would like to thank Stefan
Heinz, Potsdam, for drawing my attention to
Graun's opera.
27 Libretto, p. 110: `Bekriegt, verrathen, [. . .]'
(author's translation).
28 Libretto, p. 132: `Auch ohne sie behalt ich noch /
Das Herze einer Ko nigin; [. . .]' (author's
translation).
29 Libretto, p. 138: `Doch denkt er mich in Schimpf
und Noth zu ziehen, / So wird er sich umsonst
bemu hen. / Mein Herz ist frey, ist gleich die
Hand gebunden.' (author's translation).
30 On Frederick and women, see the old-fashioned
but very useful account by Johannes Richter in
his edition of the correspondence between
Frederick and his valet (and former lover)
Fredersdorf: Johannes Richter (ed.), Die Briefe
Friedrichs des Groen an seinen vormaligen
Kammerdiener Fredersdorf, Berlin-Grunewald,
1926, pp. 15160.
31 Helmut Bo rsch-Supan, `Friedrich der Groe und
Watteau', in Graselli and Rosenberg, Watteau
16841721, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 55362, p. 559.
32 E. Berckenhagen, P. du Colombier, M. Ku hn and
G. Poensgen, Antoine Pesne, Berlin, 1958, p. 205.
33 D. Posner, `Watteau's Reclining Nude and the
``Remedy'' Theme', The Art Bulletin, vol. 54,
1972, no. 4, pp. 3839.
34 On the temple: H. Drescher / S. Badstu bner-
Gro ger, Das Neue Palais in Potsdam. Beitra ge
zum Spa tstil der friderizianischen Architektur
und Bauplastik, Berlin, 1991, pp. 16170.
According to Badstu bner-Gro ger, the programme
of the temple was developed by Frederick's friend
Quintus Icilius: S. Badstu bner-Gro ger, `Die Ovid-
Galerie in den Neuen Kammern zu Potsdam',
Acta historiae artium academiae Scientiarum
Hungaricarum, vol. 20, 1974, pp. 27196, p. 288.
35 Drescher / Badstu bner-Gro ger, op. cit. (note 34),
p. 162: `he ros de l'amitie '.
36 Les uvres comple tes de Voltaire / The
Complete Works of Voltaire, vol. 9, Oxford,
1999, pp. 124.
37 ibid., p. 4.
38 H.-J. Giersberg, Die Ruhesta tte Friedrichs des
Groen zu Sanssouci, Berlin, 1991, pp. 910.
FREDERICK II OF PRUSSIA AS ART COLLECTOR AND PATRON
246 Association of Art Historians 2001