Hidden Symbols That Change Everything About This Marriage Portrait

A question of flesh and duty in matrimony

Double Portrait of Justinian von Holzhausen and His Wife Anna, née Fürstenberg (1536) by Conrad Faber von Kreuznach. Mixed technique on limewood. 68.6 × 98.5 cm. Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Image Source

This unusual painting shows a double portrait of a 16th-century German couple Justinian and Anna von Holzhausen.

Between them sits a baby. It is not their child (although the couple did have eleven children) but a depiction of Cupid, the classical god of desire and erotic love. Depictions of Cupid in the art of Northern Europe were extremely rare.

And that’s just the beginning of this painting’s uniqueness.

Sat on a marble balustrade with a velvet cushion, Cupid appears to be orchestrating a ritual between husband and wife. He hands a golden arrow to the man and a bunch of grapes to the woman.

Detail of ‘Double Portrait of Justinian von Holzhausen and His Wife Anna, née Fürstenberg’ (1536) by Conrad Faber von Kreuznach. Mixed technique on limewood. 68.6 × 98.5 cm. Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Image Source

At first glance, these gestures appear to invoke sensual love. Traditions of iconography read Cupid’s golden arrows as harbingers of uncontrollable desire. Likewise, bunches of grapes — with their round shape and fleshy texture, and mythological associations with wine and revelry — can be read as a symbol of abundance and fertility.