Portrait of Lieutenant Alexandre Weissgerber de Stragéwicz as a Child

Edelfelt painted this childhood portrait of Alexandre Weissgerber de Stragéwicz during his Paris years, when he was much sought after by French and international society families. The portrait of a child in formal dress was a demanding commission requiring the painter to balance the conventions of official portraiture with the naturalness appropriate to a young subject. Edelfelt had exceptional skill with such commissions, managing to preserve the child's specific character within the compositional formality expected by the family. The painting is in the Ateneum collection.

Edelfelt renders the boy with characteristic sympathy, capturing both the formal dress of his class and the naturalness of childhood. The face is treated with particular care, with gentle tonal modulation preserving the softness of a child's features.