Friedrich's Standbild in Stettin | Statue of Frederick the Great in Szczecin

Frederick the Great, who reigned over Prussia between 1740 and 1768, proved to be an outstanding monarch. Under his rule, Prussia became one of the most powerful states in Europe, and the ruler, despite waging wars and expanding the state administration, focused largely on the welfare of his subjects. The memory of the Prussian king continues to live on in paintings, prints, and sculptures that depict him. The first portrait of Frederick in public space was unveiled in Szczecin a few years after the monarch's death, on 10 October 1793, on the initiative of Ewald Friedrich von Hertzberg, a former foreign minister and close royal associate. The work was produced by the master Johann Gottfried Schadow (1764-1850), court sculptor in Berlin at the time. As commissioned by Hertzberg, the monarch was to be depicted in military attire. The sculptor, who knew Frederick II personally, dressed the statue in the everyday attire the subjects saw the monarch in, namely a shabby uniform and the characteristic tricorne. However, in order to raise the statue's prestige, the artist put a monarch's cloak on his shoulders, gave his body a majestic pose and placed an insignia of a mace in his hand, which the monarch uses to support himself on books. The Szczecin monument was rendered in an intaglio by Henry Winkles (1801-1860) and Carl Ludwig Frommel (1789-1863), and became the illustration for one of the title pages of the work "Friedrich der Große und seine Zeit" (Friedrich the Great and His Times), published in 1840 by Dr. K.F. Reiche. However, in the black-and-white engraving, the monument was altered in many details compared with the original, including the proportion of the regiment (the spectator's insignia), the arrangement of books and the finish of the sash with the decoration. The most significant difference was to Frederick II's physiognomy, which the engravers stripped of characteristic features. Małgorzata Peszko