Portrait of a Young Girl 1470

Petrus Christus painted this portrait of an unknown young girl in the mid-15th century using oil on oak panel. Paintings like this one were commissioned by the rising merchant class in Bruges, now in Belgium, to represent themselves and their families in a society where lineage and aristocracy used to be the only way to signal status. By showing off their finery and the skill of the artist they patronized, wealthy families sought to rewrite the rules of the social order. It’s interesting that the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, the institutional home for this painting, acquired it in 1821, during a period of rising nationalism and nation-building across Europe. Its display there speaks to a specific cultural and political context. Art history can illuminate these kinds of connections through archival research and careful attention to the social conditions in which artworks are made and displayed.