Portret van Johann Adam Tresenreuter 1753

Georg Lichtensteger made this portrait of Johann Adam Tresenreuter with etching around 1756 in Germany. It exemplifies how the institutions of the church and portraiture worked together to shape social hierarchies. The symbols of Tresenreuter’s status are on full display. His clothing and the book he is holding mark him as a member of the clergy, a learned man and a pillar of the community. The trappings of wealth—the fabric backdrop, the formal wig and collar—speak to the church’s entrenched position in the political and economic landscape of 18th-century Germany. Lichtensteger’s formal choices work to reinforce that position. The subject is depicted as calm, composed, respectable. Understanding this image involves researching the history of the German church, as well as the conventions of portraiture and the politics of imagery in the 1700s. These elements help to unlock the ways that institutions and individuals together create meaning.