Queen Christina was one of the most important collectors in 17th century Europe. Along with her famed collections of Italian paintings and drawings, Christina also owned what was arguably the most significant collection of antiquities amassed by an early modern woman. This talk, presented in English, will look at some of the most important marbles, bronzes, coins, cameos, and fragments acquired by Christina in both Stockholm and Rome. It will also touch on how she used the display of these objects to communicate with visitors to her residence and advance her social and political aims.
Theresa Kutasz Christensen has a PhD in Art History from the Pennsylvania State University and did her doctoral work on Queen Christina’s agent networks and sculpture collections. This talk is related to her new essay “Allegory, Antiquities, and a Gothic Apollo: Queen Christina of Sweden and the Manufacture of Cultural Identity,”being published by Brill in the volume Visualizing the Past in Italian Renaissance Art: Essays in Honor of Brian A. Curran, in March, 2021.
