Benedikt Beckenkamp - The Elector and his Sisters

Perhaps the 11th child, Maria Christina, and the 15th child, Maria Kunigunde, of the Saxon Elector August II wanted to escape the expectations of their mother Maria Josepha of Austria and therefore chose the clerical state. Maria Christine became prince-abbess of the imperial abbey in Remiremont in Alsace in 1764, Maria Kunigunde was prince-abbess of the imperial abbeys of Essen and Thorn from 1776, in fact she lived at the court of her brother Clemens Wenzelslaus, the Elector and Archbishop of Trier in Koblenz-Ehrenbreitstein.

The picture painted by Benedikt Beckenkamp shows the three siblings having coffee in the elector's private bedroom. The two sisters, who are facing each other, are wearing the fashion of the time: Christine is wearing a purple gown and the breast star of the Electoral Palatinate Order of St. Elizabeth, while Kunigunde has chosen a blue morning dress with the Order of the Star Cross on her black ribbon. Both ladies wear the powdered high hairstyles typical of the Rococo period with curls at the nape of the neck and elaborate hoods known as dormeuses. Contrary to the first picture on the theme trail with its official portrait of the Lady of Luttichuys, Beckenkamp shows a private scene here. However, it is only as private as a noblewoman could be: the ladies' befitting regalia and the consumption of the luxury drink coffee point to their high social status, which they also had to maintain in private.