And what conclusion did Bielfeld arrive at, one may ask? :)
It's always tricky to assess historical people's looks, and portraits don't help much, since in most cases they've been comimissioned and were executed by painters who wanted to get paid. (Though it's still amazing that Goya was not only paid but was the court painter given how he made the Spanish Royals of his day look.) Beauty ideals change, plus nobility had the advantage of being far better fed and healthier than your avarage citizen, so they must have looked like coming from another world by that virtue alone. For example, when Goethe reports his parents described MT as beautiful to him, I'm taking this to mean that your avarage Frankfurt citizen saw her in her FS coronation finery, as far as one could see from a waving distance, she had regular features, they were impressed, no more than that. The Prussian ambassador who saw her up close and has no reason to flatter her in a report written for her (immune to female charms) arch nemesis is a somewhat more reliable witness, but still,beautiful for a Rokoko princess doesn't necessarily mean more than "had the fashionable colouring (blond, blue eyed) for her day, regular features and enough force of personality and charm to make an impression even after she had put on more weight than even at her era was thought desirable".
Re: Fritz dressing up in French finery out of the public's eye, yup, have read this, too. It seems he and MT went in opposite directions in their private/public looks,since she when representing was supposed to dazzle in her wardrobe. (See the ambassador's disapprovalf or her not doing so outside of the holidays.9
Quelle horreur! A monarch driven only by the ambition to enlarge their territory!
It's shocking, simply shocking. Seriously though, one reads this, remembers whom it's adressed to and wonders "was he trolling Fritz or did he really believe in this double standard so much?" Alas, I fear it was the later.
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Re: What the Prussian Ambassador Wrote
Date: 2019-11-09 09:38 am (UTC)It's always tricky to assess historical people's looks, and portraits don't help much, since in most cases they've been comimissioned and were executed by painters who wanted to get paid. (Though it's still amazing that Goya was not only paid but was the court painter given how he made the Spanish Royals of his day look.) Beauty ideals change, plus nobility had the advantage of being far better fed and healthier than your avarage citizen, so they must have looked like coming from another world by that virtue alone. For example, when Goethe reports his parents described MT as beautiful to him, I'm taking this to mean that your avarage Frankfurt citizen saw her in her FS coronation finery, as far as one could see from a waving distance, she had regular features, they were impressed, no more than that. The Prussian ambassador who saw her up close and has no reason to flatter her in a report written for her (immune to female charms) arch nemesis is a somewhat more reliable witness, but still,beautiful for a Rokoko princess doesn't necessarily mean more than "had the fashionable colouring (blond, blue eyed) for her day, regular features and enough force of personality and charm to make an impression even after she had put on more weight than even at her era was thought desirable".
Re: Fritz dressing up in French finery out of the public's eye, yup, have read this, too. It seems he and MT went in opposite directions in their private/public looks,since she when representing was supposed to dazzle in her wardrobe. (See the ambassador's disapprovalf or her not doing so outside of the holidays.9
Quelle horreur! A monarch driven only by the ambition to enlarge their territory!
It's shocking, simply shocking. Seriously though, one reads this, remembers whom it's adressed to and wonders "was he trolling Fritz or did he really believe in this double standard so much?" Alas, I fear it was the later.