Kong Dan II 1646

Curator: There's a certain weightiness to this print, wouldn't you agree? Look at the gravity in the subject's gaze. Editor: Absolutely. "Kong Dan II", it's entitled; it was created anonymously in 1646, and we are showing an engraving of it. The curators at SMK - Statens Museum for Kunst acquired it at some point... though given the title's assertion about Danish Kings, let's just say history is never just a single story told. Curator: A portrait in miniature, yet possessing the kind of regal self-assurance you might see in a mural ten times its size. And there's almost a vulnerability about the rendering... Do you feel it, a raw quality beneath the crown and cloak? It's really arresting. Editor: Yes, "arresting" is a useful term here. Who was he? This engraving makes some pretty emphatic claims about the Danish line of succession, but history's more complicated than that! I want to ask about why we choose to memorialize figures such as kings in portraiture and monumental representations and not their exploited subjects. Are there resonances with today’s unequal distributions of political power? Curator: Oh, I do love where your thoughts went, of course... and that question is precisely what makes this seemingly simple portrait complex. Consider the medium, too: this engraving—with its stark black lines scratched into a polished plate—serves a documentary purpose but also transmits a peculiar sense of grandeur to the common man... it flattens or... democraticizes! The clothing practically levitates off the page in places because of this cross-hatching effect. A really odd result. Editor: Exactly. Who was supposed to *own* the image of King Dan, here? I'm curious about its reproduction, about circulation, and the implied reach. And there's something violent in this etching technique: who is pierced or marked? I appreciate, then, how it's also so materially modest, almost ephemeral. These little tensions really pull at its core message of stability and divinely ordained power. Curator: It makes me wonder what Kong Dan himself would have thought of this depiction of him so long after his death. I bet he never thought of the impact his life would have, so many years removed. A riddle wrapped in aquatint, as they say. Editor: And perhaps a good reminder to question all presumed "givens", when we consider what makes someone "royalty" or "noble". History never ends.