Who's in the portrait from Frozen - The Broadway musical?
A quick recap: in the original Broadway production of Frozen, during "For the first time in forever", Anna is seen next to the portrait of some unknown gentleman. Who is he?
I initially thought (incorrectly) this was a portrait of a young King Karl XIV Johan who was the king of Sweden and Norway (where he was known as Karl III Johan) during the years 1818-1844, i.e. during the time Frozen takes place!
Portrait of crown prince Karl Johan by François Gérard 1811 (cropped).
It could have been a cool easter egg to have him appear in the musical but unfortunately (for me) it was not the case!
My friend @bigfrozenfan suggested (correctly) that the uniform of the man in the Frozen portrait was borrowed from a painting of the Russian prince and military commander Pyotr Mikhailovich Volkonsky (1776-1852):
Portrait by English artist George Dawe circa 1823.
Unfortunately, this only gave us half the Broadway painting. We still needed the guy's face. Browsing image results on google, this painting of Russian politician and military commander Pavel Alexandrovich Stroganov (1774-1817) popped up, and it was a perfect match!
Portrait by George Dawe from some time before 1825.
Once we mirrored the picture...
Broadway on the left and original to the right.
Now, why Pavel decided to borrow his countryman Pyotr's uniform in the Frozenverse we can only speculate. What we do know is that they were both long dead when Frozen takes place.
Why were these portraits chosen by the set designers? Why not just use one portrait and call it a day? Why mane an edit? Probably just for fun. Maybe to confuse see if someone would figure out what it was based off of! 😄
It should also be mentioned that something strange is going on with the left epaulette. Compared to the original (right below), some elements of it has been copied and pasted in the Broadway version (left below). I have no idea why. maybe to save space in the picture. Other than that, the uniform appears to be completely unaltered.
I hope you learned something! 😁
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