Canvases in Conversation: Charles Amédée Philippe Van Loo’s Paintings for the Private Dining Room of King Frederick II of Prussia

This article explores three little-studied paintings that Charles Amédée Philippe Van Loo produced for Frederick II (‘the Great’) of Prussia’s private dining room at the Potsdam City Palace in 1750. The group, which is today on display at the nearby Neues Palais, comprises a canvas representing Queen Dido’s banquet from Virgil’s Aeneid, as well as two smaller works depicting the pilgrimage to Cythera and a fête champêtre. Frederick’s dining rooms were a crucial stage for his self-fashioning as a roi philosophe. It was here that he and his illustrious inner circle of courtiers cultivated a brand of sociability that was unique amongst Europe’s princes in that it proudly professed the spirit of free discussion (as long as politics remained off the table and disagreement with the king was expressed moderately). In these spaces, paintings played a crucial role as mirrors and engines of conversation. Why did he choose these particular subjects and what kinds of conversations might the paintings have given rise to? Focusing on the centrepiece, Dido’s banquet, I argue, firstly, that the painting exemplifies Frederick’s ambitions as a literary man and roi philosophe. Secondly, I suggest that it is linked to Voltaire’s arrival in Prussia in the summer of 1750 and testifies to the writer’s intimate relationship with the Duchess of Maine, whose Feast of Dido and Aeneas by François de Troy served as a model for Van Loo’s canvas. Frederick must have known of and presumably appreciated this reference to the famous tastemaker from Sceaux. The study closes with a brief discussion of the Feast of Dido’s afterlife in the decorative arts of Frederick’s court, which underscores the painting’s importance for the king.