Artwork · 17th century · Anthony van Dyck

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Queen Henrietta Maria

Anthony van Dyck1636Oil on canvas105.7 × 84.5 cm

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At a glance

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Henrietta Maria, queen of England, stands beside a crown in a yellow silk gown hung with pearls, her hands folded in front of her.
Anthony van Dyck, court painter to King Charles I, painted it in 1636.
Crown, pearls, and lace are all here, yet the picture is quiet and soft. It shows Van Dyck's way of presenting royalty through grace rather than grandeur.

Reading the picture

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Tap a number on the painting to jump to its note, or a close-up to see that spot in the whole picture.

Zoom in on her face and hair. Short curls bob across her forehead, and a black ribbon is tied in the hair on the right. Her mouth hovers on the edge of a smile. Only her cheeks and lips are touched with pink, so the pale face seems to glow.
Look at the front of her bodice. A gold brooch sits in the middle of the lace collar, and below it a large jewel hangs from a black bow. Each pearl gets a single dot of white for its highlight. That one dot is what makes it look round.
Zoom in on the crown on the table at the left. It is a gold crown edged with pearls, with a small cross-shaped ornament on top. But it sits on a table, half lost in shadow, not on her head. The painting tells you she is queen without pushing the point.
Look at the lace cuff on the right sleeve. Broad lace with a flower pattern falls in jagged points over the yellow silk. Van Dyck only hinted at the pattern with gray and white strokes, yet from a step back you seem to see every stitch.
Zoom in on her folded hands. Long, slender fingers rest lightly over one another. The people in Van Dyck's portraits very often have hands like these, long and elegant.

When it was painted

In 1636 Van Dyck was about thirty-seven. Born in Antwerp, he had worked alongside Rubens as a young man, and in 1632 he crossed to London to become principal painter to Charles I. The king knighted him and gave him a house at Blackfriars on the Thames. He painted the king, the queen, and their children many times.

The queen in this picture was in her late twenties. A daughter of King Henry IV of France, she had married Charles I in 1625 and become queen of England, a Catholic queen in a Protestant country.

This portrait was meant for Rome from the start. Henrietta Maria ordered it for Cardinal Francesco Barberini, the pope's nephew. The cardinal hoped England might return to the Catholic Church, and he saw the queen as a key ally. The painting was one of many diplomatic gifts that passed between the two courts.

The Metropolitan Museum reads the queen here as pregnant, with her arms cradled over her abdomen. In March of the following year, 1637, she gave birth to a daughter, Princess Anne.

The picture passed through other hands and in time reached the American collectors Charles and Jayne Wrightsman. It came to the Met as a bequest in 2019. Van Dyck himself died in London in 1641. The next year civil war broke out between king and Parliament, and Charles I was executed in 1649.

Look again at the queen's arms, folded softly over the yellow silk. If the museum is right, this painting carried someone else to Rome too: a child not yet born.

The painter

Anthony van Dyck

1599–1641

When painting this, the artist was about 37 years old

All paintings by Anthony van Dyck →

More by the same painter

Lucas van Uffel (died 1637)ca. 1622

Self-Portrait, from "The Iconography"ca. 1640

Questions to think about

Look for itCan you find the small letters written in the lower right corner?
Why?Why do you think Van Dyck put the crown on a side table instead of on the queen's head?
What about you?A court painter had to show the queen at her very best. How is that like choosing and editing the photos we post today, and where would you draw the line?

Same period