Christian VII 1779

This miniature of Christian VII was painted by W.A. Müller. Here, the powdered wig, a symbol of status and intellect, speaks volumes about the subject's identity and the era's obsession with appearances. Consider the wig as it mirrors similar customs across different times and places. We see echoes of it in ancient Egyptian headdresses, the towering hairstyles of the French court, and even the carefully sculpted hair of Roman emperors. Each iteration serves as a form of social signaling and a quest for power. The youthful, almost melancholic gaze hints at inner turmoil, made more poignant by his well-documented struggles with mental illness. In the grand theater of history, symbols like these often appear, vanish, and then reappear, imbued with new meaning yet still connected to their origins by an invisible thread.