THE PORTRAITS OF MICHAEL THE BRAVE DISCOVERED BY NICOLAE BĂLCESCU IN PARIS
THE PORTRAITS OF MICHAEL THE BRAVE DISCOVERED BY NICOLAE BĂLCESCU IN PARIS

Summary/Abstract: Paris, 2 August 1847. Nicolae Bălcescu and Alexandru Golescu were working in the reading rooms of the National Library of France. They discovered a set of images that would significantly shape how later generations viewed the ruler Michael the Brave. Within a collection of prints, they identified six engraved portraits depicting the Wallachian Prince. Not all of these images entered the Romanian cultural circulation. The portraits were subjected to a process of selection and visual legitimation that would later be canonised in the 19th-century national imaginary. The present study builds on the discovery made in the summer of 1847 and traces the paths through which the identified engravings were integrated into Romanian culture. The analysis addressed both the mechanisms of dissemination and reception of these images and the ways in which they influenced the iconographic repertoire of Romanian painting in the second half of the 19th century. Moreover, the study of the engravings provides an opportunity to clarify the data concerning when and where they first appeared, as well as to interpret the inscriptions and the physiognomic features of the depicted figure.

• Details
• Contents