Portrait of Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia & Electress Palatine, Oil on Canvas Painting, Fine Gilded Frame; Manner of Paul Van Somer (C.1576-1621) english School

This exquisite portrait depicts Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia. She was the only daughter of James VI of Scotland and I of England and Anne of Denmark. The reigning British monarch, Charles III, is Elizabeth Stuart's direct descendant and most other European royal families, including those of Spain, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands & Sweden, as well as those formerly of Greece, Romania, Germany, & Russia, are descendants of Elizabeth Stuart.

The resplendent costume and exquisite ornamented fabrics amply reflect her wealth and status. Her patterned dress, with long sleeves and pink lining, is decorated with gold thread and she wears a large black diamond and gold pendant from a string of pearls, and large ruby and gold egrets in her coif, which were often worn at her father’s court. The plume of white ostrich feathers was incredibly expensive The stiff flaring lace collar is held in place but a silk-covered wire frame. Many portraits were painted of Elizabeth, both during her lifetime and later. Our portrait, likely executed by an English artist during the eighteenth century, is based on a portrait that was painted while the sitter was living in exile in Rhenen in Holland (once attributed to Paul van Somer (c.1576-1621), and is now in the Royal Collection.

Born in Scotland on 19 August 1596, Elizabeth had a happy upbringing at Linlithgow Palace, situated 15 miles west of Edinburgh, and one of the grandest of Scotland’s royal residences. In 1603 her father James succeeded Elizabeth I to the English throne and Elizabeth went to England with her mother and older brother and thereafter grew up in the care of Lord and Lady Harington of Exton, living principally at Combe Abbey, near Coventry. She married a Protestant suitor: Frederick V, Prince Palatine of the Rhine in the Holy Roman Empire in 1613 in a spectacular wedding ceremony in the Royal Chapel at Whitehall Palace in London.

The young couple set out on their journey to their new home in Heidelberg, where their first child, Frederick Henry, was born in January 1614, and later, Prince Rupert, in December 1619, the same year that Frederick and Elizabeth were crowned King and Queen of Bohemia (today part of the Czech Republic). Barely a year after receiving the crown, the couple were defeated at the Battle of the White Mountain, and driven from their court. Elizabeth and Frederick fled, ultimately finding refuge at The Hague with Prince Maurice of Orange, where they established a court in exile, for the following 40 years.

Her eldest son died in 1629, followed by her husband in 1632. In 1661, she returned to England but died the following year in London. Forty years after Elizabeth’s death, The Act of Settlement of 1701 named the Electress Sophia of Hanover (1630-1714), Elizabeth’s younger daughter, as the most direct Protestant heir to the English throne. Her grandson, Prince George of Hanover, would succeed to the throne in 1714 after the death of Queen Anne, the last Stuart monarch.

A feature of this portrait is its highly ornate gilded frame, which is a work of art in its own right.

Paul van Somer, an artist trained in Antwerp, arrived in London in December 1616. Alongside Daniel Mytens, a Dutch artist who had established himself in London by 1618 and lived next door to Van Somer on St Martin's Lane, he introduced a new level of grandeur, fluidity, and naturalism to the realm of British court portraiture. Over the course of his five-year tenure in London, he rose to become the preferred painter of Anne of Denmark, the consort of James VI and I, and later of the King himself, displacing Marcus Gheeraerts and John de Critz. Like the portraits of past sovereigns, many were commissioned as official gifts, some to be sent overseas to hang alongside contemporary portraits of other European rulers.

More info at: www.titanfineart.com

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