Portret van Christiaan III van Denemarken 1545 - 1699

Curator: Here we have a striking image: "Portret van Christiaan III van Denemarken" from the collection of the Rijksmuseum. It's a print, an engraving, and while its exact creation date is a bit of a range, from 1545 to 1699, the artistry definitely evokes the medieval period. What's your immediate impression? Editor: Majesty… but almost unwillingly so? He seems…stiff. Less a ruler and more a well-dressed fellow in a rather precarious standing pose, balancing there with those legs! The line work is fascinating, all these fine details, but the overall feeling is… constricting. Is it just me? Curator: No, I see what you mean. There's a tension. This is a state portrait, intended to project power. The detailed engraving style—with its realism, heavy lines, and stark contrasts—emphasizes that. He’s got the coat of arms, the elaborate clothing, all meant to signify status. But the relatively small scale of the work perhaps works against that. Prints at this time circulated widely; they shaped the image, and often the myth, of a ruler. It had a function as propaganda, basically. Editor: Right! A carefully crafted image. You know, though the artistry is so deliberate, it does make you think about the man behind the pose. All the trappings are designed to intimidate, but I can almost sense the actual person squirming within it. I feel like the composition creates the character as much as depicting him. He looks so serious, you wonder what he actually cares about. Curator: Indeed, this was an era that really shows the tension between individual identity and social representation, what it meant to be an individual and what was demanded in a role, which is interesting from a historical and political point of view. In a way this print embodies those concepts in itself as an item of visual propaganda. Editor: Mmh, what endures for me is how it marries those stark lines, the detailed precision, with that… palpable feeling of, I don't know… human reluctance. Maybe a little vulnerability. Funny how those contrasts intertwine and persist!