Abstract During his brief reign as King of Bohemia (1619–1620), Frederick V of the Palatinate mobilized visual media to craft an image of dynastic legitimacy and assert the strength of his confessional alliances. Surviving inventories from Prague Castle reveal a substantial group of portraits linked to Frederick, his family and his allies. This ensemble is reconstructed here as a dynastic and confessional gallery intended to represent political allegiance and legitimacy. Despite Frederick’s exile after the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, most of these works remained at the castle and were later looted by Swedish troops. Several of them can be identified today in the collections of the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm. This study offers fresh insight into the Palatine use of visual media as a tool of political communication at a pivotal moment in Frederick’s career.
Štěpán Vácha (2025) studied this question.