Portrait of Queen of Sweden Hedvig Eleonor, attributed to David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl (1629-1698)

David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl (1629-1698) attributed. Portrait of Queen of Sweden Hedvig Eleonor of Holstein-Gottorp circa 1661

Canvas measuring 72 cm by 57 cm.
Spectacular old frame measuring 115 cm by 85 cm.

The artist offers us a portrait of the queen around 1661. Hedvig Eleonor (1636-1715) indeed became queen in 1661 after the death of her husband Charles was already queen consort following her marriage on October 24, 1654 to Charles X Gustav of Sweden. She will briefly exercise the regency again in 1697 then for a longer period from 1700 to 1713 for her grandson Charles XII of Sweden then at war against Russia.

David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl (1629-1698)

David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl was born in Hamburg. His father was a tailor there and it is said that the mother was called Otman (Othman). His training took place with the Dutch painter Juriaen Jacobsz, but in 1652, he left Holland for Sweden, at the request of Carl Gustaf Wrangel who offered him to continue his studies and work there, so he went to Skokloster Castle, he was 24 years old at the time. Several works from his early days in Sweden are kept at the National Museum, including a painting representing a tartar in a red jacket and a portrait of Wrangel's jester, Hasenberg (1652). In 1653 he entered the service of the Dowager Queen Maria Eleona who probably financed his study trip to Europe which began in 1655. After a two-year stay in Venice, Ehrenstrahl went to Rome, where he stayed for a few years under the patronage of the Cardinal Landgrave of Hesse. There he acquired knowledge of Italian art of the 16th and 17th centuries. It is possible that he worked with Pietro Cortona. In 1659, he was recalled to Sweden by Karl met Peter Lely, portraitist of Charles II who would greatly influence him. In 1661 he finally returned to Sweden, where he was appointed judicial editor. As such, he received an annual salary of 600 silver coins. Overwhelmed with orders, he called on assistants and founded his workshop. He was knighted in 1674 and appointed court inspector in 1690. Among Ehrenstrahl's best paintings, the impressive ceiling of the assembly hall of the Riddarhuspalatset, where he depicts Mother Svea surrounded by virtues, is generally mentioned. In Drottningholm and Gripsholm, Ehrenstrahl also painted several ceilings and large wall pieces with allegorical motifs. In the Storkyrkan in Stockholm are the two giant canvases The Crucifixion and The Last Judgment, painted in the 1690s for the chapel of the royal castle of Tre kronor, later burned down. Ehrenstrahl also produced a number of copper engravings. The most famous is the carousel suite which reproduces the festivities during the accession to the throne of Charles Many of Ehrenstrahl's more genre-based paintings show greater "freshness", for example the group The Wellmaster in Medevi and Her Sons (Gripsholm Castle) and Negro with Parrots and Land Cats (National Museum) . He also created numerous portraits of, among others, Charles XI, Erik Dahlbergh, Georg Stiernhielm and Agneta Horn (Sätuna estate). He had many pupils for whom he published a Brief Instruction on the Art of Painting, which is the first work of art theory in Sweden. Among his many students, we can mention David von Kraft, Mikael Dahl, Jacob Clompeyer, Kaspar Kenckel, Hans Georg Müller, David Richter the elder, Daniel Stahl, Kristoffer Thomas, Kristian von Thun, the miniaturist Eric Utterhielm and his daughter Anna Maria Ehrenstrahl. Ehrenstrahl was also the teacher of distinguished ladies such as Aurora and Amalia Wilhelmina von Königsmarck