Mister & Missus Portraits

(Year 225) I play a diverse community consisting of 70+ households and certain community structures, not the least socially. There are several levels of society, and just like in real life, many of them strive to climb. 

Showing off your high standards was always important, not the least for the climbers - and that's where the "Mister & Missus" portraits come in. My high nobility households have plenty of old paintings and elegant photos to pimp their oh so exclusive walls. At some point of history the top social level copied the dukedoms' portrait traditions by inventing the "Mister & Missus of the House" portraits - round and quite elegant portraits in rather high class frames. Only top level of my community (the 4 dukedoms) do not have those round portraits, as they naturally keep clinging to their own traditions.

The tradition was started about 130 years ago and is still a running thing in some families. In upper class homes the head couple had their portraits painted not too long after taking over the mansion. In these circles there could also be a larger painting of the couple, often displayed in the hall, so these smaller, round portraits were kept in their bedroom. After all, it's seen as quite egocentric filling your home with portraits of yourself. The next owner of the mansion would rotate it all by replacing the hall painting, moving the previous set of "Mister & Missus" to a wall in the living area, and finally have their own M & M portraits taken for the bedroom. This explains how these portraits are also known as "Bedside Portraits".

An example of "Bed side portraits" (Villa Crumpleton). Some day these will be moved downstairs...

In some homes 3 generations are documented by M&M portraits. By examining the details, each couple's status can often be examined even further. The background and frame is always the same for both Mister and Missus, as the set was normally created at the same time. High nobility had a painted landscape as background, others had a mono- or duo color texture. While all couples with a noble peerage bought a costly golden frame, those few wanna-be-top-society couples normally got a cheaper frame that was slightly less shiny. Only experts will see the difference easily, though.

High nobility with painted landscape background (left). Others imitated this by grading two colors (right).

Mister & Missus portraits are never copied, as they strictly connect to the house where the couple resided. Besides, because of the rather strict rules when produced, they are copyrighted by the photographer who created them and made sure rules were followed. We know of only one old example where a non noble person who claimed to be accepted as a high noble must have bribed the painter to get a top level portrait. The exclusivity surely makes them worth showing off on a central living area wall.

It's also worth mentioning that there are many wealthy households in my community that never adapted this routine. These days the tradition seems to be altered a bit as most take just one photo per couple, rather than individual portraits. As families move the tradition will fade, as they are supposed to leave their old M&M with the mansion. Therefore mostly family dynasties with a well established estate are expected to keep this going into the future.

To create these portraits I used Sims4Studio to make new TS4 meshes for the Oval Baroque Portrait by The Regal Sim. I wish the original object would not require 2 wall tiles width, though, as I try not to use bb.moveobjects cheat. The original download comes with tons of RL painting meshes. I'll share my remake file on request.