A pair or not a pair - two portraits by Christoph Friedrich Reinhold Lisiewski, circa 1760

These portraits certainly seem to make up a pair. But the identification of the subjects appears to have become muddled over time. The young man is possibly Leon Michał Radziwiłł (1722-1751), husband of Anna Ludwika Mycielska (1729-1771). That identification is considered due to a handwritten inscription on the stretcher of the painting made by a later family member, Ludwik Adam, Count Mycielski. To my eyes, though, nothing about the image suggests a man of about thirty-eight. The other painting is said to be a portrait of Anna Ludwika Mycielska (1729-1771), wife of the above Leon Michał Radziwiłł. Again, nothing about her appearance gives me to believe that the subject is a woman past thirty. And, as presented here, she doesn't bear any resemblance to other verified portraits of Anna Ludwika. So my conclusion is: If he is and she isn't, they're not a pair. And if either of them is and the other isn't, they may still be a pair, perhaps siblings. And if neither is, I'm going to say they are a pair!

I love the red underpainting showing through the green of the gown.

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Christoph Friedrich Reinhold Lisiewski (or Lisiewsky) (3 June 1725, Berlin – 11 June 1794. Ludwigslust), German portrait painter. He belonged to a family of painters founded by his father, Georg Lisiewski, a native of Poland who was an active portrait painter in Berlin. From 1752 to 1772 the younger Lisiewski was court painter to the Prince of Anhalt-Dessau. During that time, he also traveled to Dresden and Leipzig to work. Then, together with his sister Anna Dorothea Therbusch, he established a workshop in Berlin where, between 1773 to 1779, the two created work together; his other sister was the portrait painter Anna Rosina de Gasc. In 1783 he became an honorary member of the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin. And as the successor to his nephew Georg David Matthieu, he was a portrait painter for the Mecklenburg-Schwerin court at Ludwigslust palace. He worked there for eighteen years until his death at the age of sixty-nine.