JEAN-PIERRE HUAUT (SWISS, 1655-1723) AND AMI HUAUT (SWISS, 1657-1724)

The sitter was the sister of King George I of Britain and the daughter of Ernest Augustus (1629-1698), the first Elector of Hanover and Sophia of the Palatinate (1630-1714), daughter of Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia. She married, in 1684, Electoral Prince Frederick, later Elector of Brandenburg as Frederick III and King Frederick I in Prussia. Their marriage established the dynasty of the House of Prussia with the birth of their son, Frederick William I in 1688 and his son, Frederick the Great in 1712. Charlottenburg Castle in Berlin was named to commemorate Sophia Charlotte after her death as she had so encouraged the original construction of the castle, then known as Lietzenburg Castle. Two years before the start of his reign as Elector of Brandenburg, Frederick William III wrote to the Geneva Council to ask for the Frères Huaud to be released from Geneva in order for them to work as his court painters. As such, the brother executed numerous miniatures in enamel and on parchment of the ruling couple (see H. Clouzot, La Miniature sur émail en France, Paris, n.d. [c. 1928], pp. 104-105, and 212-213).