Portraits of Queen Kristina
Since Carl Gustaf Wrangel was one of her closer subjects, this is appropriate. She was also godmother to one of Wrangel’s children.
The earliest of the three portraits was painted in the early 1650s by the Dutch artist David Beck. He was Queen Kristina’s court painter for many years and he followed her to Rome after the abdication of 1654. The portrait may have been painted soon after Kristina’s mother Maria Eleonora died in 1655, since Kristina is depicted in mourning clothes. The portrait was given by Kristina to Carl Gustaf Wrangel.
The second portrait is a copy after the Flemish artist Jacob Ferdinand Voet. The original portrait is from 1680, long after Kristina’s reign. In spite of this, she holds an orb in her right hand and has her left hand on a lion to mark her strength and position.
The most sucsessful portrait comes from 1661. It is by the Dutch-Danish artist Abraham Wuchters. It shows the former queen in a white dress with blue rosettes. She holds a downturned sceptre in her right hand, which probably symbolises that she has abdicated. The portrait was painted in Norrköping when she had returned to Sweden to secure her income after Karl X’s death.
