To Eternal Memory : The six 17th-century child portraits of the German house of Holstein-Gottorp

In seventeenth-century Europe, it was common practice among the upper class, nobility and royalty to commission portraits of their children. The portraits depict children in various settings, ages, and dress, presenting them both as dead and alive; if the children died young, which was common during this epoch due to the extreme infant and child mortality, parents memorialized their children with portraits. This essay aims to add knowledge about the seventeenth-century portraiture of children. To do so, six portraits from the mid-1600s depicting the children of the ducal family of Holstein-Gottorp are studied, using Erwin Panofsky’s iconographic and iconology method, along with Peter Burke’s discussion about portraits and portraiture as a symbolic form. The essay analyses how the children, four boys and two girls, are portrayed. The children are depicted standing in dark, stately rooms, dressed in age-appropriate luxurious clothing and surrounded by symbols such as flowers, draperies, and columns, which are an indication of the children’s premature death, as they all died during infancy. The essay demonstrates that these six portraits are typical of the style of mementos created by families of the Holstein-Gottorp’s social status during this period, as well as how they hold significance as a symbol of their parents’ love and sorrow. These portraits symbolize the cultural practices of mourning and the ways in which grief was expressed in 17th century Europe.