Hans Holbein the Younger, 'Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan', 1538

Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan

Hans Holbein the Younger

Room 11

About the work

Overview

This elegant young woman is Christina of Denmark, the youngest daughter of King Christian of Denmark. In 1538, King Henry VIII of England was looking for a fourth wife, after the death of Jane Seymour the previous year. As Henry’s official court artist, Holbein was sent to Brussels to capture the 16-year-old Christina’s likeness.

It’s recorded that Holbein’s sitting with Christina only lasted from 1 to 4 p.m. on 12 March 1538. This is when he made a series of sketches to use as the basis for the painted portrait. The image apparently pleased Henry so much that he was reported to be ‘in better humour than he ever was, making musicians play on their instruments all day long'. Although their marriage negotiations failed, Henry kept Christina’s portrait until his death in 1547.

In-depth

This elegant young woman is Christina of Denmark, the youngest daughter of King Christian of Denmark. In 1538, King Henry VIII of England was looking for a fourth wife, after the death of Jane Seymour in October 1537. As Henry’s official court artist, Holbein was responsible for painting portraits of the King’s potential matches as well as his brides. In 1538 he was sent to Brussels to capture the 16-year-old Christina’s likeness.

The full-length format reflects the preferences of a previous monarch, Henry VI: in 1446 he specified that portraits of potential brides should be in this format, to show both their ‘countenance and their stature’. Christina was, according to contemporary commentators, tall for her age. She is depicted here in sombre mourning dress in honour of her husband, the Duke of Milan, who had died in 1535: she wears a black fur-lined satin gown over a black dress, and a black cap covers her hair. Her face and hands appear pale against the deep black that shrouds the rest of her body, but according to her contemporaries she was ‘Very pure, fair of colour she is not, but a mervelous good brownishe face she hathe, with fair red lippes, and ruddy chekes.’

It is recorded that Holbein’s sitting with Christina only lasted from 1 to 4 p.m. on 12 March. In this time, Holbein would have made sketches – to use as the basis for the painted portrait (the drawing for her face does not survive). He would have then transferred the drawing to panel using the same technique as he did for his portrait of Anne Lovell. Henry received an image from the artist a few days after the sitting, probably just a drawing at that stage. He was apparently so pleased with it that he was reported to be ‘in better humour than he ever was, making musicians play on their instruments all day long’. Although their marriage negotiations failed, Henry kept Christina’s portrait until his death in 1547.

The young woman’s calm, imposing presence is enhanced by the symmetry of her features and her body, which is constructed geometrically giving her a serene demeanour. Her chin forms the lowest point of a small inverted triangle placed upon another, outlined by the shape of her arms and hands as they clasp her soft gloves. Both balance upon the base of an upright triangle formed by the train of her dress, which anchors her to the ground. Holbein has left little space around her figure, drawing her closer to the viewer and heightening the intimacy of the image.

The painting is a fine example of Holbein’s ability to create the illusion of the sitter’s real presence, achieved in part by his brilliant facility at evoking texture. The black satin of Christina’s gown has a silver sheen where it catches the light, emphasising its smoothness and coolness. The clear light causes her body to cast a dark shadow against the background, asserting her physical presence as well as suggesting the space between her and the wall behind; as with sculpture, Holbein was inviting Henry to imagine walking around her. The source of the vertical shadow to the right is ambiguous, but is perhaps intended to suggests other objects nearby, in Christina’s space.

The picture eventually passed into the collection of the Dukes of Arundel. In 1880 the fifteenth Duke loaned the portrait to the National Gallery, and it became one of its most admired pictures. In the early twentieth century the Duke proposed to sell the portrait, but the sum requested was beyond the Gallery’s finances at the time and there was a risk that it would be sold abroad, specifically to the wealthy American industrialist and collector Henry Clay Frick. The public distress and outrage at the prospect of losing the painting was reflected in numerous articles in the press: as a potential bride of an English king, painted by the most celebrated artist at the English court, Christina’s portrait was regarded as part of the nation’s cultural heritage. The picture was finally purchased for the nation thanks to a gift from a donor (who, at her request, remains anonymous).

Want to find out more?

Delve deeper and explore the catalogue entry for this painting.

Key facts

Details

Full title: Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan
Artist: Hans Holbein the Younger
Artist dates: 1497/8 - 1543
Date made: 1538
Medium and support: oil on wood
Dimensions: 179.1 × 82.6 cm
Acquisition credit: Presented by the Art Fund with the aid of an anonymous donation, 1909
Inventory number: NG2475
Location: Room 11
Collection: Main Collection
Previous owners: Henry VIII, King of England
Frame: 21st-century Replica Frame

Provenance

Since Holbein is documented as taking the portrait of Christina (1522–1590) for Henry VIII at Brussels in 1538, the earliest reference to the portrait is presumably that in the inventory of Henry VIII in 1542. It is doubtless the same portrait that is listed again at Westminster, after the king’s death in 1547, in the charge of Sir Anthony Denny, Keeper of the Palace of Westminster, as ‘Item a greate Table with the picture of the Duchyes of Myllayne beinge her whole stature’. A note made in February 1551, during the reign of Edward VI, on an inventory of property that had been the responsibility of Sir Anthony Denny recorded that the portrait was given by the king (Henry VIII?) to Henry FitzAlan, 19th Earl of Arundel (1512–1580): ‘This table Therle of Arundell hathe of the kinges maiesties gift as he saithe’. Arundel may have passed the portrait directly to his nephew John, 1st Baron Lumley (1533–1609), who undoubtedly possessed it by about 1590. However, the portrait may rather next have come into the possession of William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke (1501?–1770), since an inventory of his possessions at Baynard’s Castle in 1561/2 lists: ‘The picture of the Duches of Lorayne’. This might provide corroboration for the assertion of Holbein’s biographer Van Mander that the painter Federico Zuccaro (about 1542–1609, known to have been in England for six months in 1574/5) saw a portrait apparently of Christina by Holbein at the Earl of Pembroke’s house, described as ‘a portrait of a certain Countess, dressed in black satin, life size, a full length figure, unusually pretty and well painted by Holbein’. The National Gallery portrait formerly bore the characteristic cartellino of works in the collection of John, 1st Lord Lumley and is by this means securely identifi able with the portrait listed in the Lumley inventory of around 1590 as ‘The Statuary of the Duches of Myllayne, afterwards Duches of Lorreyn daughter to Christierne King of Denmarke doone by Haunce Hollbyn’. It probably passed with other Lumley pictures to the collection of Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Arundel. It appears to be the portrait sketched by Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641) with others in Arundel’s collection when he was first in England in 1621. The artist and writer Joachim von Sandrart (1606–1688) records seeing a life-size portrait of a countess by Holbein, which must be that of Christina in Arundel’s collection in 1627 (and formerly in Pembroke’s). After Arundel’s death in 1646 the portrait is recorded in the inventory of his collection made at Amsterdam in 1655 as ‘Duchessa de Lorena grande del naturale’. These pictures were claimed by Arundel’s only surviving son, William, Lord Stafford (1614–1680). The portrait is next recorded by George Vertue (1684–1756) in 1720 at Stafford House (Tart Hall), London, the home of Arundel’s grandson, Henry Stafford-Howard, 1st Earl of Stafford (1648–1719). It was evidently inherited by Stafford’s cousin, Henry Charles Howard of Greystoke (died 1730), for it was seen by Vertue in about 1744 at the house in Soho Square, London of his son Charles Howard (1720–1786, from 1771 the 10th Duke of Norfolk). According to Vertue, the portrait was removed to Greystoke Castle (Cumbria) but by 1768 it was at Worksop Manor (Nottinghamshire), both houses owned by the Dukes of Norfolk. The picture was cleaned, repaired and varnished when it was at Worksop in 1774: a bill for the work carried out on this and other pictures by Messrs Hayman & Pugh records that the pictures were all ‘in a very bad condition and greatly mildewed and the painting scaling off which made it very diffi cult to restore’. It was still at Worksop Manor in 1813. The house was sold by Bernard Howard, 12th Duke of Norfolk (1765–1842), in 1839, and it was probably then that the painting was transferred to another seat of the Dukes of Norfolk, Arundel Castle, where it was seen by Waagen in 1854. From 1880 until 1909 it was on loan to the National Gallery (except when lent to exhibitions). In 1908 the 15th Duke of Norfolk informed the trustees that he was being offered substantial sums for the picture but gave an undertaking to first offer the portrait to the Gallery for the same price; on 22 April 1909 he told the trustees he had been offered £61,000 for the picture, giving them until 1 May to find the matching sum. As they were unable to do so, the portrait was sold to Colnaghi’s, who offered it to the American collector Henry Clay Frick (1849–1919) for £72,000 on condition that the National Gallery would be allowed to try to match the sum by 1 June. At the last minute it was bought by the National Art-Collections Fund with the aid of an anonymous donation of £40,000, supplementing a Treasury grant for £10,000 and other contributions, and presented to the National Gallery in 1909.

Additional information

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Susan Foister, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The German Paintings before 1800’, London 2024; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Exhibition history

2008

Renaissance Faces: Van Eyck to Titian

The National Gallery (London)

15 October 2008 - 18 January 2009
2014

Strange Beauty: Masters of the German Renaissance

The National Gallery (London)

19 February 2014 - 11 May 2014

Bibliography

1813

J. Hodgson and F.C. Laird, The Beauties of England and Wales: Nottinghamshire, London 1813
1854

G.F. Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain: Being and Account of the Chief Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Illuminated Mss. […], vol. 2, trans. E. Eastlake, London 1854
1874

A. Woltmann, Holbein und seine Zeit, 2nd revised edn, 2 vols, Leipzig 1874
1909

M.W. Brockwell, 'Holbein's Portrait of Christina Duchess of Milan', The Connoisseur, XXIV, 1909, pp. 183-4
1912

L.H. Cust, 'Notes on the Collections Formed by Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel and Surrey, K. G.-V', The Burlington Magazine, XXI/113, 1912, pp. 256-8
1913

J. Cartwright, Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan and Lorraine, London 1913
1913

A.B. Chamberlain, Hans Holbein the Younger, London 1913
1924

D.S. MacColl, 'Twenty-One Years of the National Art Collections Fund', The Burlington Magazine, XLIV/253, 1924, pp. 174-9
1929

G. Vertue, 'Vertue Note Books, I', The Walpole Society, XVIII, 1930
1935

G. Vertue, 'Vertue Note Books, IV', The Walpole Society, XXIV, 1936
1946

Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: British School, London 1946
1950

P. Ganz, The Paintings of Hans Holbein (first Complete Edition), London 1950
1951

G. Ring, 'Three Works of the "Regent Master" at the Royal Academy', The Burlington Magazine, XCIII/576, 1951, pp. 88-92
1956

J. Plesters, 'Cross-Sections and Chemical Analysis of Paint Samples', Studies in Conservation, II/3, 1956, pp. 110-57
1957

D. Piper, 'The1590 Lumley Inventory: Hilliard, Segar and the Earl of Essex - I', The Burlington Magazine, XCIX/652, 1957, pp. 223-5
1959

Levey, Michael, National Gallery Catalogues: The German Schools, London 1959
1959

R. Strong, 'Federigo Zuccaro's Visit to England in 1575', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XXII/43193, 1959, pp. 359-60
1968

M. Levey, Holbein's Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan, London 1968
1971

A. Salvini and H.W. Grohn, L'opera pittorica completa di Holbein il Giovane, Milan 1971
1974

J. Fletcher, 'Tree Ring Dates for Some Panel Paintings in England', The Burlington Magazine, CXVI/854, 1974, pp. 250-8
1981

A.R. Tintner, 'Henry James's the Outcry and the Art Drain of 1908-9', Apollo, 1981, pp. 110-2
1985

J. Rowlands, The Paintings of Hans Holbein the Younger, Oxford 1985
1987

J. Roberts, Drawings by Holbein from the Court of Henry VIII: Fifty drawings from the Collection of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Windsor Castle (exh. cat. Art Gallery of Ontario, 28 October -15 January 1989), Houston 1987
1990

L. Campbell, Renaissance Portraits: European Portrait-Painting in the 14th, 15th and 16th Centuries, New Haven 1990
1991

M. Kusche, '"Der christliche Ritter und seine Dame", das Repräsentationsbildnis in ganzer Figur', Pantheon, XLIX, 1991, pp. 4-35
1993

J.G. Links, Painting Fur, n.p. 1993
1995

E.H. Gombrich, Shadows: The Depiction of Cast Shadows in Western Art (exh. cat. The National Gallery, 26 April - 18 June 1995), London 1995
1996

C. van Mander, The Lives of the Illustrious Netherlandish and German Painters from the First Edition of the Schilder-boeck (1603-4), ed. H. Miedema, Doornspijk 1996
1996

S. Foister, '"My Foolish Curiosity": Holbein in the Collection of the Earl of Arundel', Apollo, 1996, pp. 51-6
1997

O. Bätschmann and P. Griener, Hans Holbein, London 1997
1997

S. Foister, 'Holbein in England. Ein Höhepunkt der Porträtmalerei', Belvedere, II, 1997, pp. 42-59
1997

S. Foister et al., Holbein's Ambassadors (exh. cat. The National Gallery, 5 November 1997 - 1 February 1998), London 1997
2001

C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
2002

E. Goldring, 'An Important Early Picture Collection: The Earl of Pembroke's 1561/62 Inventory and the Provenance of Holbein's Christina of Denmark', The Burlington Magazine, CXLIV/1188, 2002, pp. 157-60
2008

L. Syson et al., Renaissance Faces: Van Eyck to Titian (exh. cat. The National Gallery, 15 October 2008 - 16 January 2009), London 2008
2024

S. Foister, National Gallery Catalogues: The German Paintings before 1800, 2 vols, London 2024

Frame

This is a replica frame made at the Gallery in 2006. The box-style oak frame is stained and polished to enhance the painting’s colour palette.

This frame was inspired by a Tudor frame on the portrait of Katherine Parr (1545) attributed to Master John (National Portrait Gallery, London). Previously, Holbein’s Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan had an antique wooden box frame with gilded profiles, which had been modified to accommodate a glazing door.

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

Images

Insights

Learn how Hans Holbein the Younger's portrait of the 16-year-old widow Christina of Denmark piqued Henry VIII's interest when he was looking for a new bride and the surprising story of how the work came into our collection with Susan Foister, our Deputy Director.

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About the work

Overview

In-depth

Key facts

Details

Provenance

Additional information

Source

Exhibition history

Bibliography

Frame

About this record

Images

Insights

More works by Hans Holbein the Younger