Revelling Children with a Goat 1663 - 1707

This terracotta sculpture, "Revelling Children with a Goat," was created by Joachim Henne, a sculptor active in late 17th-century Copenhagen. In Henne’s time, the Royal Danish court, like many European monarchies, drew on the traditions of classical antiquity to legitimize power. The revelry of childhood, as depicted here, carries echoes of pagan bacchanals, but it is rendered in a particularly northern European way, one which reflects the tastes of the Danish court. The plump children, cherubic and full of life, are frozen in a moment of play. But what does it mean to aestheticize childhood? The sculpture offers a sanitized and sentimental view, one which reflects elite notions of innocence rather than the lived realities of children in the 17th century. It invites us to consider childhood not as a universal experience, but as a social and cultural construct, shaped by power and privilege.