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Internationell Kvalitetsauktion
10 – 13 juni 2025 »
To be sold at Uppsala Auktionskammare’s Important Sale Week 10 – 13 June 2025
Lot 629 Sébastien Bourdon (France 1616‑1671). Portrait of Christina, Queen of Sweden. With inscription R Christina. Oil on relined canvas, 104 x 89.5 cm.
Executed in 1653.
Compare with the portraits in the collections of Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, inv. no. NM 1072 and in Museo del Prado, Madrid inv. no. P002402.
Included in Svenska Porträttarkivet, SPA 1919:1040.
600.000 – 800.000 SEK
€ 55.000 – 73.000
Stavsund, Uppland, placed in Kungssalen.
Axel (1881‑1961) and Marguerite (1891‑1973) Wenner-Gren, Häringe slott, Södermanland.
An important Swedish private collection.
Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, ”Christina, Queen of Sweden – a Personality of European Civilisation”, 29 July-16 October 1966, cat. no. 378.
Svenska Slott och Herresäten vid 1900-talets början, Uppland, 1909, illustrated p. 297, mentioned p. 298.
Karl Erik Steneberg, Kristnatidens måleri, 1955, p. 180, illustrated pl. 84.
Pontus Grate, French Paintings I: Seventeenth Century, 1988, mentioned p. 27.
Jacques Thuillier, Sébastien Bourdon, 1616‑1671, Rétrospective, 2000, cat. no. 148, p. 293.
On June 6, 1654, Queen Christina abdicated the crown in a formal renunciation ceremony at Uppsala slott. Just over a year and a half earlier, she had summoned the French painter Sébastien Bourdon to Stockholm to paint her portrait.
In mid-17th century France, the artistic scene was filled with shining stars—and in his quest to become the brightest of them all, Sébastien Bourdon saw his chance to boost his reputation when invited to the Swedish court as the queen’s court painter. Christina, who was a perpetually curious and searching person, attracted scholars, writers, and artists willing to travel to the cold North. With her reputation as a generous patron and with well-placed friends at court, Bourdon was enticed to leave Paris with his wife Suzanne Du Guernier. They arrived in Stockholm in October 1652.
Bourdon, who had previously focused on historical and biblical scenes and pastiches in his distinguished career, naturally outshone the local painters when he created a series of portraits of the queen and her inner circle. In Kristinatidens måleri, Karl Erik Steneberg mentions the Dutchman Theodor Cornelisz van der Schuer (1628–1707) as Bourdon’s assistant in the studio during his Swedish stay, where he worked at a rapid pace.
Bourdon later travelled to Madrid to present his grand equestrian portrait of Queen Christina to King Philip IV of Spain. On his return journey, he was delayed by a flood, and then reunited with his family in Paris, and soon thereafter the Swedish queen abdicated. Bourdon’s further plans in Sweden ended, but he could still proudly title himself as the queen’s first painter – a merit that secured his future. He went on to receive many prestigious commissions and is regarded as one of the foremost French painters of his time.
In Sébastien Bourdon – Catalogue critique et chronologique de l’œuvre complet (2000) by Jacques Thuillier, the Christina portraits are catalogued. Two bust-length portraits of Christina are listed, where she wears a black silk dress and white blouse with a black bow, and her hair is partially up (one in the Carl Gripenstedt collection, Bysta, and a replica sold through Fritzes Kungliga hovbokhandel). A similar portrait, but with curlier hair, is in the Nationalmuseum collection (inv. no. NM 1072). Bourdon also made a red chalk drawing of the queen in the same pose (Louvre, Paris, inv. no. R.F.767), which was also engraved.
The portrait most similar to the one featured in the auction is the one at the Museo del Prado in Madrid, which served extensively as a model for studio and later copies. In the auction’s portrait and the Prado version, both half-length depictions, the queen is shown in an interior setting. Once again, the artist portrays her in a black dress with a voluminous white blouse underneath, a black silk ribbon tied in a bow at the neck, and her curly brown hair partly up. In the Prado version, she is seated in a red armchair, while in the auction’s painting, she stands in a half-length format. The most notable differences lie in the queen’s gestures. Her left hand holds a sceptre, though at different angles; in the auction’s portrait, the royal crown is placed beside her on a table. Her right hand is also posed differently, held gracefully at various heights at her chest. In the auction’s portrait, her otherwise timeless black silk dress is adorned with an impressive brooch with three large pearls. The finalization of the Christina portrait may have involved van der Schuer, likely assisting Bourdon with elements like the hands and the crown.
The widely admired queen is portrayed in intimate detail, with exquisite precision and technique. She appears strikingly human, with personal features, perhaps idealized according to classical tastes of the time, but not flatteringly so. The artist immortalizes the queen at the height of her reign, and his portrait of the queen of Sweden remains one of the most well-known and celebrated.
Much has been written about Queen Christina. As one of Sweden’s few female monarchs, she has fascinated and bewildered the world since her lifetime. She made bold life choices, defying norms, religion, family, and her kingdom to follow her own path. Born into royalty and raised to be a king, her entire upbringing was marked by that destiny. Living with the disappointed hope for a male heir was a heavy burden. Her father, Gustavus Adolphus, died shortly before her sixth birthday, and since a state law in 1604 had passed allowing female succession, she became queen of Sweden. A regency ruled the country while Christina was educated in all that was deemed worthy and required of a ruler. She was declared of age in 1644 and took over governance. Her coronation on October 20, 1650, was a grand state event and an extravagant spectacle, where she was crowned king (!) in Storkyrkan, Stockholm.
Besides politics, Christina showed great interest in art and science, gathering scholars from across Europe at her court. Perhaps most important to her, however, was her faith. With a father who had fought and died for Protestantism in the Thirty Years’ War, converting from the Swedish Lutheran Church to Catholicism must have been an unthinkable decision. Yet, with unmatched determination and focus, she resolved to abdicate in favour of her cousin Charles Gustav and entrusted Sweden to him as she left for southern Europe. She found a new home in Rome, where she was received triumphantly. Upon her death, she was buried beside popes in St. Peter’s Basilica. Her epitaph reads:
“I was born free, lived free, and shall die liberated.”
Queen Christina was portrayed numerous times during her life by artists such as Jacob Heinrich Elbfas (1600-1664), David Beck (1621-1656) and Abraham Wuchters (1608-1682). The portrait in this auction, painted by the French Sébastien Bourdon, is perhaps one of the finest – the only one showing the royal regalia – and one of the few Christina portraits still in private ownership. In 1966, the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm arranged a major exhibition titled “Christina – Queen of Sweden”, where the present portrait was displayed. With provenance from Stavsund and later Wenner-Gren at Häringe slott, and currently in a prominent collection, this is a rare opportunity to acquire Sébastien Bourdon’s striking portrait of Queen Christina. ■