Frederick, Hereditary Prince of Denmark

Christopher Foltmar was a miniaturist and organist. He created miniature portraits of Frederick V’s royal family, of the king himself, of his two wives¹ and their children. This miniature shows Frederick, Prince of Denmark and Norway (1753 - 1805), a son of King Frederick V² from his second marriage to Juliana Maria of Brunswick. Frederick was considered instable. That is why the ostentatious display of a globe and some books – additionally stressed by the pointing finger of the sitter – is confusing and possibly holds a hidden meaning.
Even as a child Frederick was competing with his half-brother, Crown Prince Christian from his father’s first marriage. Frederick’s mother favoured her own son over the heir to the throne. Later he became central to the opposition to Johann Friedrich Struensee, who was Christian VII’s personal physician and cabinet minister.³ The latter had, as a result of the king’s weakness, risen to a power undreamt of at the Copenhagen court. After Struensee’s fall in 1772, Frederick became the real ruler in Denmark, together with his mother Juliana Maria, as his mentally handicapped stepbrother Christian VII was unable to govern. His influence was only repressed when Christian’s son Frederick took over the regency of his incompetent father in 1784.
After Christian’s death in 1808 his son Frederick acceded to the throne as King Frederick VI of Denmark and Norway. As he died without male issue, his successor was Christian VIII, a son of the hereditary prince.
J. S .O.