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In this portrait of Queen Henrietta Maria she is shown facing forward with her left shoulder slightly towards us and her arms cradled. She wears a gold-coloured silk dress with a lavish lace collar and cuffs, a black bow around her waist, two strings of pearls, a brooch and a diamond pendant. A jewelled crown rests on a table to her right. The painting is believed to commemorate a chapter in the history of the Merchant Adventurers' Hall when Queen Henrietta Maria, having heard of the plight of Parliamentarian prisoners who were imprisoned in squalid conditions within the Hall, gave money from her own purse for their relief. She believed that although they were the 'enemy' all prisoners deserved to be treated with respect. A label originally on the painting from the 1970s reads: 'A close variant, probably early 18th century from the portrait by Van Dyck now at Windsor Castle, differing in the position of the hands and in the background.
Merchant Adventurers’ Hall
York
Title
Queen Henrietta Maria (1609–1669)
Date
early 18th C
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
H 107 x W 81 cm
Accession number
YORMA 158
Acquisition method
gift from Mr John Francis Taylor, past Governor, 1890
Work type
Painting