Painting Detail
Portrait of Sophia-CharlotteArtist: Nathaniel Dance-Holland
Medium: Painting, Oil on canvas, 240x147 cm
Date: 1773
Genre: Portrait
Source: English Palace, Peterhof, 1931
Sophia-Charlotte, wife of King George III of England, is here seen in a typical example of an official portrait intended as a diplomatic gift. Behind it lies the kind of composition created by van Dyck in the 17th century for such works: the Queen stands in her official robes and with all the regalia of power against a background of colonnade and drapery . The painting is very professional but lacking in character. Its greatest interest lies in the story of how the portrait reached Russia. Through the British ambassador in Russia, Lord Cathcart, Nathaniel Dance was commissioned to paint paired portraits of King George and his wife. Both portraits would seem to have then been presented by George III to Catherine the Great, who intended them for the Chesme Palace, her favourite resting place on the road from St Petersburg to her beloved summer residence at Tsarskoe Selo. This palace was built in the style of a Gothic castle and housed a portrait gallery of all the crowned heads of Europe and members of their family. Catherine asserted her right to belong to this gathering, although she came to power in 1762 as the result of a coup d'etat in which her husband, Peter II, was overthrown, and she sought to use every means at her disposal, including art, to emphasise the legitimacy of her rule.