Portrait of Carl Justinian von Holzhausen, after 1781

About the Work

In the days before it was possible to reproduce family portraits by photographic means, painted and printed copies provided completeness and substitutes in the portrait galleries of wealthy aristocratic and upper-class families. This copy of Hofnaas’s Portrait of Carl Justinian von Holzhausen (1750–1793) will also have served that function. For generations, the von Holzhausens—an old-established line of Frankfurt patricians—had themselves immortalized in portraits to preserve the memory of their family members. Here the copyist departed from the original by dressing his subject in a double-breasted green coat and omitting the black hat under his arm. He replicated the details of the furnishings precisely, however, and scaled them down to fit into the oval format.