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Chap. XXV. HISTORIC PORTRAIT GALLERY. 375
she declined him as a consort, was so touched at his
disappointment she invested him with the order of the
Garter as a consolation.
The portrait of Frederic II. in a black dress and
starched ruff, by Peter Isaacs, is highly characteristic
of that monarch—he looks the very pattern of decorum,
although his face, red and puffy, tells of strong liquor.
Passing over the pendent portrait of his queen,
Sophia of Mecklenburg, seated, with her emblazoned
missal on a prie-dieu beside her, by the same artist, as
well as a smaller one, taken when young, by Knuber,*
we turn to the gem of the gallery, a third portrait
of the queen, by Jacob van Dort, dated 1626, a
halflength. She is here represented as an aged lady,
with calm serene brow and pale blue eyes, her hands
clasped before her; she holds in her hand a pair of
green gloves with white gauntlets; she is dressed in
black, her jewels a few pearls, and her husband’s
cipher; the crown lies on a table by her side. Nowhere
have I seen so charming a portrait, so exquisitely
painted, so true to the life and character of this pious
queen. A widow before her son had attained his
eleventh year, the regency was refused her by the
nobles, and her son Christian IV. removed from her
tutelage. Perhaps had she guided his early youth he
might have proved a better man. In later days, when
his fortunes became adverse, she built and fitted out, at
her own expence, a large man-of-war, called the Sophie,
* A Flemish painter from Antwerp, of whose works there are
several, who was summoned about this period to Kronborg to prepare the
cartoon of the tapestry now hanging in the upper rooms of the Northern
Museum of Copenhagen.
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