Fotoreproductie van een geschilderd portret van Maria Theresia (Rooms-Duits keizerin) door Martin Mytens before 1860

This is a photographic reproduction by Joseph Maes of a painted portrait of Maria Theresa, Holy Roman Empress. Consider how Maria Theresa, as one of the only women to hold such power, navigated the male-dominated world of 18th-century European politics. Maes’s photogravure captures the regality of Martin Mytens’s original portrait. Yet, it also speaks to the democratizing force of photography in the 19th century. It made images of powerful figures like Maria Theresa accessible to a wider audience. The photograph, bound within a book, transforms the empress into a commodity for private consumption, a far cry from the original courtly context of Mytens's painting. How might Maria Theresa have responded to this transformation of her image? Does this reproduction diminish her power, or does it extend her reach across time and social strata? It leaves us to consider the complex interplay of power, gender, and representation across centuries.