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Courtly Family

In fact, this portrait of a six-headed noble family shows an interesting composition:a diagonal is going from the father over the son and the elder daughter to the youngest child; the elder daughter simultaneously forms the starting point of a second diagonal to the mother in the background. Thus, the setting up of the family members is quite space-filling. Thereby the daughter`s bright blue coloured dress plays an essential role. Even though all family members turn their heads in different directions, all of them look at the observer, which leads to the effect that their postures and gestures give a rather stiff and unnatural impression, as it was actually common at that time. At first sight, the viewer is reminded of pictures painted by Martin van Meytens (as well: Mytens), who was a virtuoso specialist in the representation of surfaces and was later to become the favourite court painter of Maria Theresia. The unproportional and slightly pasty representation of the hands, however, forbids to ascribe this miniature to Meytens. Nevertheless, it is most probable that the actual artist knew some of his works.