PORTRETELE COPIILOR ÎN MEDALISTICA BAROCĂ. STUDIU DE CAZ
CHILDREN PORTRAITS IN BAROQUE MEDAL STUDY

Summary/Abstract: Children Portraits in Baroque Medal Study. One of the Baroque period constancies is the image of children in the form of chubby putti, trouble makers and charming, who fill the art works of the time, regardless the genre. Religious art presents an infinite row of putti floating in frescoes and statuary groups; secular creations also fully appeal to the fresh emergence of the putti treading on air in mythological scenes, allegories, genre scenes, portraits etc. This presence records in fact also an extremely crude reality: the high infantile mortality of the period. The almost obsessive image of the small creatures mirrored the absolute consolatory faith that all those children became angels and had a special destiny. Medal work offers also a series of children portraits presenting chubby putti or individual portraits presenting the members of the Imperial family. Remarkable is the period of Maria Theresa who issued with obstinacy medals for all her children, granting attention to each of them by medals for the joy at birth, cheerful marriage announcements or in unfortunate cases, for the sadness of their premature death. The beautiful faces of Maria Theresa’s children, engraved on various medals, present a series of similar features, belonging to the series of expression portraits, having sometime remarkable plastic qualities.

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