Presumed Portrait Of The Wife Of The Danish Zoologist Morten Thrane Brünnich, Ca. 1780

Presumed Portrait of the Wife of the Danish Zoologist Morten Thrane Brünnich, ca. 1780

Oil on canvas

Dimensions with frame: 59 × 49 cm
Without frame: 48 × 38 cm

A small late 18th-century oval female portrait, datable to around 1780 thanks to the exceptionally high hairstyle, the most distinctive feature of the image. This type of coiffure immediately recalls the years of Marie Antoinette and the final decades of the 18th century.

The pale face stands out against a dark background, with a gentle and direct expression. The low-cut bodice, the pink bow, and the light transparent passages suit the worldly taste of the period, but it is above all the hairstyle that gives the portrait its clearest and most memorable character.

On the reverse, an old handwritten label identifies the sitter as Wibecke Schou, wife of the Danish zoologist and mineralogist Morten Thrane Brünnich. This opens a particularly interesting context, that of Enlightenment Denmark, between Copenhagen, natural history, scientific collections, and the university world. Brünnich studied insects, published on northern birds, also dealt with Mediterranean fish, and played an important role in the formation of the mineralogical collection of the University of Copenhagen.

The story becomes even more curious because Brünnich belonged to a family in which painting and science truly coexisted: his father Andreas Brünniche was a portrait painter in Copenhagen, and his brother Peter was also a painter. The picture therefore retains all the charm of a small northern European portrait from the late 18th century, with an unexpectedly learned background behind its light and fashionable elegance.

Canvas reinforced on the reverse with an old wooden panel. Antique frame, reworked in the 20th century. Overall good condition.