A Mirror for the Prince? Anne of Denmark in Hunting Costume with Her Dogs (1617) by Paul van Somer

This essay reassesses a portrait of Anna of Denmark, Queen Consort to James VI and I, discussing its possible influence upon and use by her son, Charles, Prince of Wales, as an exemplary pattern of majesty. The portrait's aesthetic references to Anna's venerable genealogy and issue, alongside its singular originality, present the queen as a work of art wrought from the rarest dynastic materials and aesthetic precedents. It suggests that, in tandem with its function as a representation of the queen's own majesty, the portrait acts within a semiprivate dynastic-familial context, as a mirror for the prince and as a connoisseurial model of martial majesty for his emulation.