Portrait of Prince Ferenc Rákóczi II

It is not only the person of Ferenc Rákóczi II, prince of Translylvania and leader o fan uprising against Habsburg rule (1703-1711), but also the unity of unaffected dignity and intimateness not found anywhere else in Mányoki’s oeuvre that makes this painting an embelatic work of Hungarian baroque portraiture. The picture is a private portrait of the prince, now living in exile, showing him as a private person in Hungarian noblemen’s outfit, without the paraphernalia of the princely rank, with the order of the Golden Fleece he recieved in 1708. Mányoki, who had lived and worked in German-speaking areas since his childhood, arrived to Hungary from Berlin in August 1707 to serve Rákóczi as his court painter. In addition to painting Rákóczi’s portraits, he was also entrusted with confidential missions, pronting and disseminating propaganda materilas during his trips abroad. He set out on such a mission in the autumn of 1709 to the Netherlands and a few months later to Berlin, from where he did not return to Hungary after the suppression of the Rákóczi’s in Poland, Gdanks. He painted his last portrait of the prince there in October 1712, before Rakóczi left for France. The painting was persumably painted for August the Strong king of Poland and elector of Saxony and sent as a present by Rákóczi to Dresden. The inventory of 1728 already mentions it as an item in the saxon ruler’s collections. In 1925 Marcell Nemes acquired it and donated itt o the Museum of Fine Arts.