THERBUSCH, Anna Dorothea
(b. 1721, Berlin, d. 1782, Berlin)

Wilhelmine Encke, Countess Lichtenau

1776
Oil on canvas, 143 x 103 cm
Neues Palais, Potsdam

Among Prussia's strongest portraitists was Anna Dorothea Therbusch, daughter and sister of skilled artists painter to Frederick the great, and member of many academies. Her canvases of royal favourites, such as Wilhelmine Encke, Countess Lichtenau, suggest Frederick's possible later preponsity for Rubensian lusciousness, in life as well as art.