Sold...portrait of Sophia-dorothea, Princess of Celle: Continental School C.1700

Portrait of Sophia-Dorothea of Celle (Zeel) 1666-1726.

Oil on canvas, inscribed 'S. de Zeel' and bearing the pre-1707 English Royal coat of arms.

Sophia-Dorothea was the only child of George William of Brunswick-Celle and Eleanore d'Olbreuze. In 1682 she was married, aged sixteen, for political and dynastic reasons, to her cousin George of Hanover, who later became King of England. She bore him two children, one of whom became George ll of England. This marriage was a very unhappy one; Sophia was hated by her mother-in-law the Electress of Hanover and these feeling were soon shared by George himself.

George was a coarse and boorish man with no interest in the arts and literature which appealed to his wife. It was under these circumstances that Sophia met the dashing cavalry officer Count Philip Christophe von Konigsmark of Sweden; he assisted her in two futile attempts to escape from Hanover and, rightly or wrongly, was regarded as her lover.

Through the political machinations and intrigues of the Countess von Platen, her father-in-law's long term mistress and Konigsmark's spurned lover, Sophia and Konigsmark were betrayed. On 1 July 1694 Konigsmark disappeared and was never seen again; it was rumoured throughout Europe that George had ordered his wife's lover to be hacked to death, and many years later a mutilated skeleton was discovered buried beneath George's palace of Herrenhausen.

What really shocked the nobility of Europe was George's treatment of Sophia; she was divorced, forbidden to see her children again and then imprisoned in the Castle of Ahlden for the rest of her life.

She was twenty-eight and was to remain locked away for another thirty-two years until her death. As Sophia died of fever she raved at the cruelty and wickedness of her husband; George was so incensed he refused to allow her name to be inscribed on her coffin.

Sophia-Dorothea's tragic life has been made into an Oscar winning film 'Saraband for Dead Lovers' (1948) starring Stewart Granger as Konigsmark and Joan Littlewood as Sophia; also at least three novels, including the best seller 'The Princess of Celle' by Jean Plaidy.

SIZE: 37 x 28 inc. frame