The Collection of Queen Christina of Sweden: Repurposing Ancient Iconography to Redefine Modern Queenship

Abstract

In this paper, I analyze the life and collection of Christina, Queen of Sweden (1626-1689), as a complex and shifting performance of gender, authority, and other aspects of identity. I argue that Christina’s education and life experiences actively informed her collecting preferences for certain types of mythological figures, which became an effective tool of her self-fashioning as a ruler who broke away from what she viewed as the confines and expectations of her gender. I will demonstrate how her strategies as an astute patron and collector of the arts were central to her subversive presentation as an almost androgynous self-exiled ruler in Rome, who could emulate both male and female virtues equally in order to transfer her former political power to new social and cultural capital. Christina’s collection, newly assembled in the Palazzo Riario in Rome, served this purpose by creating a controlled environment that enforced particular relationships between collector and spectator, spectator and collected objects, as well as among the objects themselves. This thesis weds the various theories of Queen Christina and her collection into a comprehensive theory of her larger project of self-fashioning, arguing that her collecting practices regarding both ancient and contemporary works followed a cohesive philosophy in her politics of collection and display, even while largely challenging the decorum of female patronage. Christina’s self-promoted identity as Minerva of the North forces the viewer to contemplate the items in the collection both on their own and in conversation with one another as part of a larger display. In the nudes of the Stanza dei Quadri on her second floor, as well as the antiquities featured on the ground floor, Christina used the relationship between images and sculptures to create an allegorical pantheon focused on her own self-control and authority. In understanding objects’ interactivity, it is possible to interpret Christina’s renovations to the Palazzo Riario and the display of her collection as a modern day Parnassus or Arcadia, which she used to establish her Roman home as a primary location of scholarship and creation. The contents and display of her collection extended her desired persona as a leader of wisdom and user of knowledge not easily bound by the constraints of either gender. The metaphorical space of Arcadia that she created strengthened her alignment with Minerva, the goddess of wisdom and warfare, and implicitly also with Apollo, who presided over Parnassus. In the case of Queen Christina, we have found that in addition to the personal prestige associated with obtaining valued items, the display of these items in a kind of curated space added value and meaning to the viewing experience.