The Tansey Miniatures Foundation

Die Miniatur Über den Künstler

The Tansey Miniatures Foundation

DE
The Miniature About the Artist

Wilhelmine of Hesse-Kassel

German

Wilhelmine of Hesse-Kassel (1726-1808), who was well-known for her beauty, is represented in a ladies’ uniform. She wears a waistcoat trimmed with golden braid and a coat with wide cuffs over a green dress. In her right hand she holds the black tricorn trimmed with white fur. She is also wearing the orange-red, diamond-set sash and the blue-enamelled cross of the Prussian Order of the Black Eagle. The Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem (Order of St John) is fixed on the black bow. The red bow partially covered by the coat belongs to the Hessian Order of the Golden Lion.1 Since Wilhelmine had herself painted in uniform, possibly while hunting, she is not wearing the powdered wig typical of her class. She is placed in the great outdoors in front of tree scenery and an idyllic evening sky.2
Wilhelmine was the daughter of the Landgrave Maximilian of Hesse-Kassel and of Friederike Charlotte of Hesse-Darmstadt. In 1752, she married Friedrich II’s younger brother, Prince Henry of Prussia, a distinguished commander and diplomat. The couple lived in Rheinsberg Castle and in the Crown Prince’s Palace Unter den Linden in Berlin, today’s Humboldt University. They remained childless and separated in 1766, allegedly because Wilhelmine had an affair. However, it is fair to assume that the real reason for their separation was Henry’s preference for his own sex.
B. P.

1 We are grateful to Karl Trefzer for the identification of the orders.
2 The castle at Wolfsgarten, belonging to the Hessian House Foundation, contains a miniature from same period that shows Caroline, Landgravine of Hesse-Darmstadt, and bears an astonishing resemblance to this one in its composition. Cf. Biermann and Brinckmann 1909, no. 115 (transferred to the National Museum of Warsaw). Caroline also wears a braid-trimmed uniform and a tricorn hat, but no orders. She is accompanied by a dog, which suggests that she is hunting.