Joachim Martin Falbe (1709 Berlin - 1782 ibid.) Oval Baroque portrait of the Berlin court jeweller Pierre Lautier This representative portrait was probably painted around 1755-1760 and shows him in half-profile in the fashion of the time with a curly wig, white collar and silver-grey jacket against a neutral brown background. The sitter can be identified by an old sticky note in French on the back of the original stretcher: "Pierre Lautier a Berlin (/) père de (/) Marie Magdaleine Platzmann née Lautier (/) Donc le grandpère de (/) Henry Charles Platzmann (/) et bisaïeul (/) de Charles Victor Platzmann". Stylistically, the portrait can be attributed with some certainty to Joachim Martin Falbe. The latter had undergone thorough artistic training with Pesne in Berlin from 1733, became his master pupil and remained his most important collaborator for a total of 15 years. Through Pesne's mediation, Falbe was offered a position at the court of Prince August Ludwig von Anhalt-Köthen, who appointed him court painter on his departure in 1739. Back in Prussia, he was honoured with the title of royal court painter in the same year. Pesne and Falbe, who became an honorary member of the Berlin Royal Prussian Academy of Arts in 1756, held each other in such high esteem that Pesne entrusted him with the completion of his unfinished paintings on his deathbed in 1757. Oil on canvas, mounted; adhesive label with details of the sitter on the verso. 76.5 cm x 63 cm, in oval. Frame. Cf. Ekhart Berckenhagen: "Joachim Martin Falbe", in "Zeitschrift des Deutschen Vereins für Kunstwissenschaft", vol. 43, no. 1, 1989, pp. 94-107, Wvz.-Nr. 37, ill. 12 (on p. 100); for the sitter see Wolfgang Scheffler: Berliner Goldschmiede, Berlin 1968, pp. 195, 214-15, nos. 991 and 1084. Pierre Lautier, a Huguenot from La Baume in the Dauphiné, was court jeweller to King Frederick II of Prussia in Berlin and supplied him with precious tabatiers in 1765 (as evidenced by the king's so-called "Schatullrechnungen"). His daughter Marie Madeleine (Magdalene) Lautier (1731 - 1790) married the silk manufacturer Jean (Johannes) Platzmann (1720 - 1770) in 1752. Oil on canvas, relined. Old label with information about the sitter on the reverse. Mentioned in the catalogue raisonné from Ekhart Berckenhagen, no. 37.