(Hildburghausen or Weimar 1740–1812 Orléans)
Venus and Cupid,
signed and dated at lower right: Heinsius pinx. 1780,
oil on canvas, 57 x 68 cm, gilded Josephinian gallery frame

Provenance:
Sale, Dorotheum, Vienna, 20 October 1993, lot 373;
German private collection

From 1772 to 1775, Heinsius, who came from Thuringia, was “cabinet painter to the prince” and conservator of the ducal picture gallery in Weimar. In 1779, he went to Paris, where he was appointed court painter to the “mesdames”, the daughters of King Louis XV. The present painting, dated to 1780, was thus already completed in France. In the following years, the artist commuted between Paris and Weimar. As a consequence of the French Revolution, Heinsius moved from Paris to the more tranquil town of Orléans in 1790–93. Thieme-Becker praises the painter’s “extremely sensitive skills when it comes to colouring, draughtsmanship, and psychology ”. In his texts, the art historiographer Meusel emphasized the artist’s “lively colour scheme” and the “fresh, bright, and vivid flesh tones”. In its great appeal and sensual charm, as well as its delicate, warm complexions, the present painting is on an equal footing with the works of the leading French artists of the time. It is not without reason that Heinsius, with his elegant portraits and expressive genre scenes, is better known in France than in the German-speaking area.