Queen Christina of Sweden is a really interesting figure, not only in art history but also in the history of politics and gender roles.

Her father, King Gustav, died when she was only six years old, and up to that point, Sweden’s law stated that the ruler of the nation could only be male. Gustav, however, brought up Christina in light of being a ruler—he granted her proper scientific, mathematic, literary, and philosophical education and taught her royal sports like horseback riding and hunting. Still, the Swedish did not approve of Christina at first, what with her being only six years old, a female heir, and also someone they were not exposed to or aware of since she was so young.

Gustav left Chancellor Oxenstierna, a trusted friend, to take care of Christina and to make sure she was able to get the throne. What Oxenstierna did was commission an engraving of the portrait of Christina and to show this portrait to the Swedish by displaying it beside the image of Gustav in the palace. In this portrait, he asked the artist to give emphasis to Christina’s facial features which showed likeness to her late father. This gave the Swedish the idea that Christina would be a good ruler like Gustav was. This was the start of Christina’s relation to the power of portraiture.

 

Throughout her reign, she used her portraits as a means to show her personal values and also to gain better publicity. The three images I have placed on the left are ones which struck me as the most important ones. This first one is how she liked being portrayed, which is very different from how queens usually liked being painted—with opulent jewels and massive gowns. At this point, as a young adult, Christina was embracing the fact that she had a very masculine personality. Her lack of femininity raised a lot of controversy in her time, and the French gossiped that she was a lesbian and an atheist.

This is what led to this specific painting by David Beck. Christina sent this painting to Louis XIV to show that she was still a feminine figure, focusing on diplomacy, wisdom, knowledge, and peace.

 

This next painting was made during a period when Christina was secretly planning to convert from Lutheranism to Catholicism. She sent this painting to Philip IV of Spain, a Catholic country so she could gain his alliance when she could decide to abdicate and flee from Sweden. She flattered him by making many references to his own portraits and also included a lot of imagery to showcase her benevolence and heroism.

These are just some examples of how she used portraiture to her political advantage. She always commissioned artists to create a specific image for her to show to the public, and it’s fascinating to see how her image changes with the kind of events that were happening in the time period she was reigning in.

Aside from commissioning painters to do her portraits, she was an avid collector of other art as well. During her time, the Thirty Years War had ended, and Sweden was able to amass a ton of loot from their opponent countries. Included in this loot are paintings by many important Renaissance artists, notably, Titian.

She also commissioned her court painters to paint people important to her. One example is this painting of Countess Ebba Sparra, who was her lady-in-waiting and her apparent lover.

 

Even after abdicating the throne, she was interested in collecting art. In Rome, she made friends with Bernini, who made her multiple sculptures, all of which have not survived. There are, however, accounts of these sculptures by Tessin the Younger, who visited her Roman home and recorded her furniture. A central sculpture in her home was a mirror sculpture, illustrated above by Tessin.

Overall, I’m really in awe of Christina of Sweden and her relationship with art. I’m surprised that I’ve never heard of her, because she seems to be friends with all the important people! She was after all, tutored by Rene Descartes (and is even the reason he died, probably) and friends with Bernini! I find that really amazing. I’m also in awe of how she was able to pull off being a masculine queen—I wasn’t aware that was possible in that time! She can’t be called feminist, exactly, but I’m sure that she would be an interesting figure to study in regards to that—but that’s for another blog post.

I am sort of disappointed that there’s not much information connecting her to colonial art, but that’s probably because Sweden wasn’t a big figure in colonial Europe, as compared to Portugal and Spain. It was mentioned, however, that she did keep King Gustav’s Cabinet of Miniature Curiosities, but it was made in Germany and does not reflect much colonial art except that some materials used in making it were from India.

Still, I feel like Christina is a really interesting figure in art history, especially considering she was female. Truly, everything has a bit more of an interesting twist once a woman steps in the picture.

References: 

Popp, Nathan Alan. “Beneath the surface: the portraiture and visual rhetoric of Sweden’s Queen Christina.” MA (Master of Arts) thesis, University of Iowa, 2010. http://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/576.
Zirpolo, Lilian H. “Christina of Sweden’s Patronage of Bernini: The Mirror of Truth Revealed by Time.” Woman’s Art Journal, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Spring – Summer, 2005), pp. 38-43. Woman’s Art Inc. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3566533