123. Venice: the Molo with the
Prisons and the Doges’ Palace, 1743.
Oil on canvas, 60.3 x 95.6 cm.
The Royal Collection, London.
At the time, Dresden was a city of pleasure and art. It had undergone a very pleasant change since the reign of Augustus II, an extravagant prince who was a great lover of beauty and an organizer of theatrical events and sumptuous ceremonies. Is it not likely that the Saxon citizens were quite debonair, as they found it exquisite and in the best of taste that their monarch had capriciously traded his best dragoon regiment to his horrible neighbour Frederick William of Prussia for twelve superb vases of Oriental porcelain? Augustus III was certainly no less generous than his father, as far as artists were concerned. His sole occupation was to build capital by any means in order to decorate his residences, his capital city and everything in his States according to his tastes. His squandering of State funds was wonderfully organized in favour of beauty and art.
The Saxon court was as extravagant as the monarch who had designed it. It was the premiere court of Europe, after that of France. By decorating his capital city with beautiful buildings, by constructing magnificent palaces, where elegance, dignity and luxurious taste would reign, this prince seems to have taken on the task of reviving the spirit of Versailles, the memory of which remained vivid in the minds of foreign monarchs. Arts and letters never had a better patron. His propensity for sponsoring the arts even led him to do crazy things. Lacking his father’s qualities, Augustus III carried on the deceased king’s lavish traditions, but, unskilled in management, ruined his court with the money he spent on music and paintings. Hunting was really his main passion. And as his electorate offered him more beautiful forests than his kingdom to satisfy his tastes, he always preferred Dresden to Warsaw.
Already settled for several years in the capital city of Saxony, where he found memories and the presence of his countrymen, such as the wonderful alto Annibali and the famous singer Minotti, Bellotto was appointed court painter in 1751 with a salary of twenty crowns per month. However, the weak-minded Augustus III succumbed entirely to the influence of the Count of Bruhl, a clever courtier whose accommodating attitude made him indispensable. Shrewd enough to hide his omnipotence and to give his sovereign the illusion of authority, the Count constantly worried about keeping all influence, other than his own, away from the sovereign’s indecisive mind. Even the valets were not allowed to enter the palace without authorization from the sovereign’s favourite. A great lover of luxury, Augustus III was not averse to finding riches from his own house in that of his minister. In addition, the latter kept more than two hundred valets at his service. In the words of Frederick II, he was “the man who, during this century, owned more outfits, watches, lace, boots, shoes and slippers than anyone else. Caesar would have ranked him among the best curled and perfumed heads, a man whom he would hardly fear”. To the question, “Bruhl, do I have any money left?” he always replied in the affirmative. Reducing the army to a point where it would have been unable to oppose seventy thousand of Frederick’s troops, the ruining of the State’s credit and bankruptcy was of little concern to him.