The Tansey Miniatures Foundation

Die Miniatur Über den Künstler

The Tansey Miniatures Foundation

DE
The Miniature About the Artist

Probably Caroline Mathilde, Queen of Denmark and Norway

Cornelius Høyer

The miniature came into the Tansey Collection as a portrait of an unknown lady by Mosnier. However, it turned out to be a typical work by the Danish miniaturist Cornelius Høyer. He painted the portrait only a few years after his four-year study trip to France, Italy and Germany, from which he returned to his home town of Copenhagen in October 1768. His training in the studio of the Parisian miniaturist Massé had shaped his style and moreover led to a very close relationship between the two artists. The young Høyer’s owed his easy and graceful style of portraiture and the broad, free painting technique of his miniatures to Massé. In his “Essai historique” of 1778 Hennings describes Massé’s influence on the artist:“Though being too old to work, Massé’s conduct and conversations were instructive to our young artist. … Massé’s house was a meeting place of the most eminent artists, coming from all over Europe. All their conversations turned on art. The competition of so many brilliant artists must have kindled Mister Høyer’s talent and strengthened it, giving him all the vigour to which he was susceptible.”1 Massé valued the young artist’s talent so highly that in his will he appointed him to complete his family miniatures should he no longer be able to do so himself.2
In all likelihood the sitter is the Danish Queen Caroline Mathilde. On her chest she wears the diamond-studded Order of Queen Caroline Mathilde, which she herself had created in 1771 to honour not only members of the royal couple’s inner circle but also Christian VII’s personal physician, Struensee, who had been elevated to cabinet secretary.3 One year later the discredited Struensee was ousted from office and put to death because of his advancement at the Copenhagen court and his love affair with the Queen.
J. S. O./ B. P.

1 Hennings 1778, p.129. comp. Colding 1961, p. 187.
2 Campardon 181, p. 128
3 Apart from the Queen, the female members of the order were Juliane Marie of Denmark, Christine Sophie Gähler, baroness Caroline Schimmelmann, Amalie Sophie of Holstein and Louise von Plessen, chief lady-in-waiting to the queen. While the first three of these cannot be the sitter, either because of age or lack of resemblance, and Louise von Plessen has to be eliminated since when she received the order she was no longer at the court in Copenhagen. Identification of the sitter as Caroline Mathilde – in spite of facial differences – is supported by the fact that her hairstyle and hair ornaments are found in other portraits. Cf. the portrait by Jens Juel, frequently used as a model (Residenzmuseum in the Palace of Celle, inv. no. BM 71/ST). For the history of the Order of Queen Caroline Mathilde cf. Schmieglitz-Otten/Steinau 2001, p. 50 ff.