In which she has a question

[zeborah]

This is Dorothea of Brandenburg: twice queen of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden; regent in her husbands' absence; commander of all the castles in the three kingdoms; holder of so many fiefs it caused political problems, including the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein after her husband couldn't repay her loans -- in short, the most powerful and presumably vocal woman of 15th century Scandinavia.



W. T. F?

Comments

[tauira.livejournal.com]

SILENCE HER.

[zeborah]

I get the feeling that the painter's saying, "See, even God doesn't want to listen to any more of that quean's nagging."

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

Indeed. It's a very... telling picture, isn't it?

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

Definitely an artist (or artist's patron) with an axe to grind. It seems to be half of an image with one of her husbands. Maybe she was making her own statement... or maybe he was.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a5/Christian_1.jpg/200px-Christian_1.jpg

[zeborah]

Oh, now that's interesting. That painting names him as "Christian the first [...] King Frederik the first's father", which suggests to me that it wasn't painted until after both Christian the second and Frederik the second, had come along some decades after both Christian I's and Dorothea's deaths.

OTOH the clothing style looks more 15th than 16th century to my eye.

Perhaps (re)labelled after it was painted?

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe camouflage? Like "Who, me? Vocal?"
I'd imagine that whoever painted her, if he did so from life, did it with her permission.

[zeborah]

I'd certainly like to think permission was involved, and that sounds plausible. Still a great shame that it should be necessary to such an extent.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

It could have been an in-joke, of course, because everyone knew she was the last person they could shut up.

[phaetonschariot.livejournal.com]

Picasso woz here.