Johann George IV, Elector of Saxony

The sitter, wearing a broadly flowing allonge wig, makes both a self-confident and a distrustful, morose impression. The half-length portrait shows Johann George IV (1668–1694), elder brother of August the Strong, who described him as “wrathful and melancholy”. Proclaimed Elector in 1691, he died only a few years later at the age of just twenty-six. On the lower edge of the relief are the initials of Balthasar Permoser, who was appointed court sculptor in Dresden in 1689. Only a few of his portrait medallions have survived. The Berlin piece evidences his exquisite mastery of his art: though the relief is extremely shallow, Permoser’s portrait of the Elector achieves a highly nuanced, and at the same time generously conceived, multi-layered account of the sitter’s individual nature.