Portrait of  Johana von Borcke

Carl Adolf Henning, a student of Carl Wilhelm Wach in Berlin and Wilhelm von Schadow in Düsseldorf, was one of the artists freely exploring various portrait conventions ˗ from the neo-Classicist manifested in the Szczecin painting ˗ up to the Biedermeier one, catering to the middle class tastes. The portrait of a young woman created ca. 1856, smoothly painted, with a sophisticated colour palette, is the presentation of Johana von Borcke, representative of a well known old Pomeranian family of noblemen. The woman is clothed in a high-waist tunic with a red belt, which is worn over a white garment with short, freely arranged sleeves with golden trimming, revealing the décolleté area. The outfit is supplemented with a blue shawl draped on her left arm. Half a century earlier ˗ at the turn of the 19th century ˗ Prussian Queen Louise from the Mecklenburg-Strelitz (Burg Hohenzollern) dynasty was presented by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun in an almost identical neo-Classical dress. The similarities are also evident in the hairdos of both women: fair hair, parted in the middle and arranged high above the golden band (in the case of Queen Louise ˗ a chaplet), fall in tresses on the neck. Furthermore, the positioning of the model in the Szczecin painting is the mirror image of the Queen’s portrait. It is possible that it is a graphic rendition of the painting of Vigée Le Brun, popularising the image of Louise, used by the painter. Reference to the queen’s portrait was used to stress the position and the prestige of the von Borcke family. However, execution of a portrait of a woman from a renowned family, definitely actively reacting to changes in fashion at the Berlin court, in an almost outfit that is almost half a century old raises justified doubts. It is possible that Carl Adolf Henning decided to create a copy of another image of Johana von Borcke, who lived at the turn of the 19th century, intended for the family gallery of ancestors in one of the seats of the Pomeranian family.

Dariusz Kacprzak