I visit Christina of Denmark

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/hans-holbein-the-younger-christina-of-denmark-duchess-of-milan

Please follow this link to see my favourite painting. I know there is a way for me to do this with my photo program but I don't seem to remember how.

I did catch up with Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan, just a few days ago. When I look at this work of Holbein's I want to hold my breath for a very long time.

The English are kindness itself, letting all of us see the collection without charge, presented beautifully and in such good condition. I salute this country for what is offers every visitor, so quietly and without fanfare. Of course, there is a problem when you offer all of this for free on a grey, drizzling winter Sunday between Christmas and New Year. Lots and lots of visitors! Not all of them are here because they love a painting the way I do this one. No indeed they are here because it is on the 'list' of things to do. Let's not forget it is free, perhaps the biggest atttraction of all. As usual the gift shop is packed even tighter than the picture galleries.

I am interested to see on the website (as you will if you follow the link), that this painting is the focus of some project of people writing about the subject. This is what I will write .......

This is so beautifully painted. The artistic skills, the use of the paint, the placement of the figure in the picture frame. The slight tilt of her head that changes the way we perceive the subject. Holbein has managed to depict the black gown so that is not only sombre but also rich. I want to walk into the room and finger that fabric. This subject is so much a real person that I feel I just might know her in another life.

I love the painting, but I feel angry at the reason for its existence. This young woman, perhaps 15 or so years of age, is being traded on again. Look at the story - married at 11 years of age by proxy, a widow at 13. What to do with here? Was she a virgin widow and would that add to her value? Within another few years she is again married, this time to the future Duc of Lorraine. Four years of married life is all she has before she is widowed again. For the rest of her life, until 1590, she lives as the Regent of Lorraine.

I like to think that Holbein used his extraordinary talents as a portrait painter to carefully show Christina in such a light as to not appeal to his patron Henry VIII. I think I am being fanciful here. He was a great portrait painter, and in this work he is able to show us that she is no simpering pretty girl, but a sad woman of strength, who feels powerless in the world she finds herself in.