This impressive portrait of Frederick Augustus II (1697–1763), Elector of Saxony and King of Poland (as Augustus III), painted when the young Frederick spent a year in Paris in 1714–15, is a companion to Largillierre’s contemporaneous portrait of the prince’s father, Augustus the Strong (Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City). Both father and son are shown wearing the sash of the Danish Order of the Elephant, conferred on Frederick Augustus II in 1711. Frederick Augustus II was an enthusiastic patron of the arts who once owned Tiepolo’s The Banquet of Cleopatra.
Collection of Princess von Hohenlohe, Paris, before 1938 collection of Baron d'Huart, Paris, by 1938 d’Huart sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 7 December 1938, no. 38 exhibited Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin, Höfische Bildnisse des Spätbarock, 1966, no.50 private collection, Paris, 1966 with Heim Gallery (dealer), Paris and London, by 1968 from where acquired by the NGV, under the terms of the Everard Studley Miller Bequest, 1968.