Project Details
Projekt
Portrait Configurations – Studies of Visual Education in Court Portraits, 1500–1800
Applicant
Dr. Silvia Schmitt-Maass
Subject Area
Art History
Term
from 2018 to 2020
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 407722562
The research project (second dissertation) in art history ties in with current researches on cultural portrait practices. It analyzes European aristocratic children and family portraiture as visual and material culture, throwing light on portrait practices in the context of court education between 1500 and 1800 (Habsburg, Tudors, Stuarts, House of Welf and House of Bourbon). The images will be examined as case-studies and reflected with regard to their compositions of figures (configurations) and to their intermedial relations and functional characteristics as visualized ‘princes’ or princesses’ mirrors’. The literary type (‘mirrors for princes’) outreaches from manuscripts and emblematic prints up to heroic epics and political novels. These texts, like correspondances and instructions, are going to be evaluated as (so far underestimated) sources, that themselves address the cultural practices of portraits (and painting) in intrinsic or extrinsic manner. The proposal is limited to three visits abroad: to England (3), Austria (2) and Spain (2), due to the fundamental research on the portraits and their contexts (original portraits and archive materials, such as: educational instructions, invoices, reports, books, correspondences), interfacing current international researches. In order to research French (and Belgian) sources, a proposal at the Forum for Art History (DFK, Paris) is scheduled separately.
DFG Programme
Research Fellowships
International Connection
Austria, Spain, United Kingdom
