Portrait of Christina of Denmark (or Portrait in Mourning) is an oil on oak panel painting by Hans Holbein the Younger completed in 1538.[1] It was commissioned that year by Thomas Cromwell, agent for Henry VIII, as a betrothal painting following the death of the English Queen Jane Seymour. It shows the then sixteen-year-old Christina of Denmark, widowed to Duchess of Milan since she had been 13 years. Her striking manner and strength of character are apparent in the portrait. Although Henry was taken by the representation, the marriage proposal did not go ahead, not least because Christina was aware of Henry's earlier mistreatment of his wives. She is reported as saying, "If I had two heads, I would happily put one at the disposal of the King of England".[2] Various political and practical obstacles related to her ties with the Lutheran church also thwarted the match.
Art historian Derek Wilson wrote that the portrait "is the loveliest painting of a woman [Holbein] ever painted, that is, it is one of the finest female portraits ever painted."[3]
Despite it not resulting in the marriage he had hoped for, Henry liked the portrait so much that he kept it until he died. It was acquired in 1909 by the National Gallery, London, where it is on permanent display.[4]
Commission
Following the 1537 death of the English Queen Jane Seymour, Holbein was commissioned to paint portraits of noblewomen eligible to marry Henry VIII. Christina was Duchess of Milan, and widowed to Francesco II Sforza, who had died in 1535 when she was just thirteen. Thomas Cromwell sent Holbein and the ambassador Philip Hoby to Brussels to meet with her. He was tasked with providing a straightforward, exact portrait of the girl.[5]
They arrived in Denmark on 10 March 1538. On the 12th Christina sat for the portrait for a three hour session between 1:00 and 4:00 pm.[6] Holbein would have been able to speak with her in his native German. That afternoon he made preparatory sketches of her head; the final oil painting was completed at some point shortly after his return to England.
Christina herself was against marriage arrangement; she was only sixteen years old and made no secret of her distaste for Henry, who by this time had a reputation around Europe for his mistreatment of wives. She is credited with saying; "If I had two heads, I would happily put one at the disposal of the King of England".[2]
Henry was so taken with the initial colour drawings for the portrait — which showed only her head[5] — that, according to the imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys, "since he saw it he has been in much better humour than he ever was, making musicians play on their instruments all day long".[3] On the basis of the drawing, he commissioned Holbein to extend it to a full-length oil panel.[5]
John Hutton, the English ambassador in Brussels, reported that another artist's drawing of Christina was "sloberid" (slobbered) compared to Holbein's.[7][3]
Christina stands in full length in a frontal pose. She is set against a turquoise background, reminiscent of 15th century Burgundian art. She is dressed in black mourning clothes years after the death of her husband, as was the custom for women in noble Italian marriages. Her black gown is lined with brown fur. She throws a shadow against the wall behind her, a further strip of shadow appears on the right hand side, thrown by an unseen source. Her expression is lively and engaged. She is given bright red lips, whose colour is echoed by the red ring on her fingers.[5] Her youth is conveyed through her half smile, oval face, shy expression and dimples.[2]
Although the portrait is filled with indicators of her nobility, she has taken off her gloves, allowing an informal, intimate atmosphere. She has almost perfect white skin, the tones of which are off-set against her black overcoat.[5]
Auerbach, Erna. Tudor Artists: A Study of Painters in the Royal Service and of Portraiture on Illuminated Documents from the Accession of Henry VIII to the Death of Elizabeth I. London: Athlone Press, 1954. OCLC 1293216
Bätschmann, Oskar. Hans Holbein. Princeton University Press, 1999. ISBN978-0-6910-0516-4
Anne of Cleves was Queen of England from 6 January to 12 July 1540 as the fourth wife of King Henry VIII. Not much is known about Anne before 1527, when she became betrothed to Francis, Duke of Bar, son and heir of Antoine, Duke of Lorraine, although their marriage did not proceed. In March 1539, negotiations for Anne's marriage to Henry began, as Henry believed that he needed to form a political alliance with her brother, William, who was a leader of the Protestants of Western Germany, to strengthen his position against potential attacks from Catholic France and the Holy Roman Empire.
Hans Holbein the Younger was a German-Swiss painter and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style, and is considered one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He also produced religious art, satire, and Reformation propaganda, and he made a significant contribution to the history of book design. He is called "the Younger" to distinguish him from his father Hans Holbein the Elder, an accomplished painter of the Late Gothic school.
Sir Philip Hoby PC was a 16th-century English Ambassador to the Holy Roman Empire and Flanders.
Elizabeth Seymour was a younger daughter of Sir John Seymour of Wulfhall, Wiltshire and Margery Wentworth. Elizabeth and her sister Jane served in the household of Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII. The Seymours rose to prominence after the king's attention turned to Jane. In May 1536, Anne Boleyn was accused of treason and adultery, and subsequently executed. On 30 May 1536, eleven days after Anne's execution, Henry VIII and Jane were married. Elizabeth was not included in her sister's household during her brief reign, although she would serve two of Henry VIII's later wives, Anne of Cleves and Catherine Howard. Jane died 24 October 1537, twelve days after giving birth to a healthy son, Edward VI.
Christina of Denmark was a Danish princess, the younger surviving daughter of King Christian II of Denmark and Norway and Isabella of Austria. By her two marriages, she became Duchess of Milan, then Duchess of Lorraine. She served as the regent of Lorraine from 1545 to 1552 during the minority of her son. She was also a claimant to the thrones of Denmark, Norway and Sweden in 1561–1590 and was sovereign Lady of Tortona in 1578–1584.
The artists of the Tudor court are the painters and limners engaged by the monarchs of England's Tudor dynasty and their courtiers between 1485 and 1603, from the reign of Henry VII to the death of Elizabeth I.
Catherine Howard, also spelt Katheryn Howard, was Queen of England from 1540 until 1541 as the fifth wife of King Henry VIII. She was the daughter of Lord Edmund Howard and Joyce Culpeper, a cousin to Anne Boleyn, and the niece of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk. Thomas Howard was a prominent politician at Henry's court, and he secured her a place in the household of Henry's fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, where she caught the King's interest. She married him on 28 July 1540 at Oatlands Palace in Surrey, just 19 days after the annulment of his marriage to Anne. He was 49, and she was between 15 and 21 years old, though it is widely accepted that she was 17 at the time of her marriage to Henry VIII.
Portrait of Sir Thomas More is an oak panel painting commissioned in 1527 of Thomas More by the German artist and printmaker Hans Holbein the Younger, now in the Frick Collection in New York.
Portrait Miniature of Margaret Roper is a painting by the German artist and printmaker Hans Holbein the Younger created during 1535–36, and today held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Margaret Roper (1505–44) was the eldest child of Sir Thomas More and wife of the English biographer William Roper. It is the second and less well known of two portraits of Roper painted by Holbein. The first, Portrait of an English Woman, is generally believed to show Roper but may depict another unknown lady of the English court. The New York work was painted during the artist's second visit to London, likely in the mid-1530s.
Venus and Amor is painting by the so-called "Venus Painter" of Hans Holbein the Youngers workshop and is conserved in the Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland. It was assumed for a long time to be painting by Hans Holbein the Younger, but research showed that this could not be possible. It was discovered that the painter had used a sort of a carbon paper with the contours of the already existing Laïs and used it to transfer those contours in reverse on the new portrait he was to paint of Venus. As the portrait of Laïs is dated with 1526, the year of Hans Holbeins departure from Basel, it is assumed that the work has been painted between 1526 and 1528, the years Holbein stayed in London. The painting depicts the Roman goddess of love, Venus, with her son Amor (Cupid) and the model is believed to be either Magdalena Offenburg or her daughter Dorothea. They are shown in front of a large hanging green curtain and behind a low parapet. Venus is depicted with an open gesture and sincere gaze. Cupid is seen climbing onto the parapet while holding love's arrow in his left hand. He has red-orange hair, rendered in the same colouring and tone of the rich cloth sleeves covering his mother's upper arms.
Portrait of Henry VIII is a lost painting by Hans Holbein the Younger depicting Henry VIII. It is one of the most iconic images of Henry VIII and is one of the most famous portraits of any English or British monarch. It was created in 1536–1537 as part of the Whitehall Mural showing the Tudor dynasty at the Palace of Whitehall, Westminster, which was destroyed by fire in 1698, but is still well known through many copies.
Sir Nicholas Poyntz was a prominent English courtier during the latter part of Henry VIII's reign. There is a portrait drawing by Hans Holbein the Younger in the Royal Collection and an oil portrait after the same artist based on the drawing in the National Portrait Gallery, London. One further portrait also exists after Holbein.
Elizabeth Wyckes, was the wife of Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, and chief minister to Henry VIII of England. She was daughter to Henry Wyckes, a well-to-do clothier from Chertsey, and his wife Mercy, who married Sir John Pryor after Wyckes' death.
Renée of Bourbon, Duchess of Lorraine, also called, Renée, Lady of Mercœur, was a Duchess consort of Lorraine. She was a daughter of Gilbert de Bourbon, Count of Montpensier by Clara Gonzaga, and sister of Charles de Bourbon, Duke of Bourbon.
Portrait of Thomas Cromwell is a small oil painting by the German and Swiss artist Hans Holbein the Younger, usually dated to between 1532 and 1534, when Cromwell, an English lawyer and statesman who served as chief minister to King Henry VIII of England from 1532 to 1540, was around 48 years old. It is one of two portraits Holbein painted of him; the other is a tondo from a series of medallions of Tudor courtiers.
Portrait of a Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling is an oil-on-oak portrait completed in around 1526–1528 by German Renaissance painter Hans Holbein the Younger. The painting shows a demurely dressed young woman sitting against a plain blue background and holding in her lap a squirrel on a chain eating a nut; a starling sits on a grape vine in the background with its beak pointing at her right ear. The grape, a Biblical motif, for Holbein was a symbol of abundance and wealth. The subject of this portrait is believed to be Anne Lovell, wife of Sir Francis Lovell (d. 1551), an Esquire of the Body to Henry VIII.
Hans Holbein the Younger painted the Portrait of Erasmus of Rotterdam several times, and his paintings were much copied, at the time and later. It is difficult to disentangle Holbein's original work from that of his workshop and other copyists. Possibly five largely original versions survive, as well as a number of drawings made as studies.
Portrait of a Lady, probably a Member of the Cromwell Family is an oil on panel portrait completed in around 1535–1540 by German painter and printmaker, Hans Holbein the Younger. The painting shows an elegantly but demurely dressed young woman sitting against a blue-grey background. The subject of this portrait is thought to be a member of the Cromwell family, perhaps Thomas Cromwell's daughter-in-law, Elizabeth Seymour, sister to Jane, third consort of Henry VIII.
Portrait Miniature of Hans Schwarzwaldt is a watercolour on vellum portrait completed in around 1535–1540 by German artist and printmaker, Hans Holbein the Younger. The painting shows a young man against a clear blue background. Only the head and shoulders are shown, turned three-quarters to the viewer's right, the eyes cast down. The light brown hair is close cropped, and the sitter is wearing a brown doublet, trimmed with black, with a small, open falling collar with white strings attached. There is no inscription. The subject of this portrait was identified as a Danzig merchant, Hans Schwarzwaldt (1513-1575), based on a very strong resemblance to another portrait made by Holbein in 1543, but his age does not match the inscription. It has been suggested that the young man might be Gregory Cromwell, 1st Baron Cromwell, the son of Henry VIII's chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex.
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