Boxes, Frames and Eggs: Portrait Miniatures as ‘Portable Dynasties’ within European Court Culture (original) (raw)

The employment of portrait miniatures as a genealogical tool in European court culture has its origins in their illustrative use for elaborately designed royal family trees, be it in sculpture, painting, or print. Transferred into sumptuously designed compilations of valued family members or important ancestors and sovereigns such galleries en miniature served as means to create historicity as well as dynastic legitimation. Furthermore, they could connote both private and public aspects, from familial ties to dynastic and political propaganda. The handling therefore could be connected to a very private as well as a public display but also depended to a large extent on the material nature of these objects. Framed in tableaus, miniatures could be openly displayed to visitors as part of royal collections. On the other hand, they could be arranged in portable assemblages such as leather-bound albums for private use. The most striking compilation, however, would be the inset in precious objects of virtue such as the golden snuff boxes known from the French and Habsburg courts, or the famous Fabergé eggs commissioned by the Russian Tsars. Gifted to family members or important allies, these objects were an ostentatious display of wealth and a distinct statement of the dynastic heritage. The paper will discuss the various modes of settings as well as the multiple objectives of agency and handling of these ‘portable dynasties’ on the basis of selected objects from European courts.