Insignia of Honour on Three 19th-Century Portraits of Croatian Bans

During the 19th century, Croatia saw a succession of nineteen bans (viceroys) and banal deputies, and the likeness of most of them has been preserved in portraits. They were not often depicted with state insignia and dignity symbols; therefore, the three representative portraits to be presented in this paper, those of Ignjat Gyulay, Josip Jelačić and Ladislav Pejačević, are the more interesting. In their own way, these portraits are a testimony of the political position of the Triune Kingdom of Croatia, Dalmatia and Slavonia within the Habsburg and, later on, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy as well as the role and authority of the Croatian ban. They are works by prominent painters and are kept in the holdings of the Croatian History Museum in Zagreb.