Portrait of King Carl XII of Sweden (1682-1718), three-quarter-length, in a green coat over a steel cuirass, holding a commander's baton and wearing a sword, a fortress beyond

Details

Michael Dahl (Stockholm ?1659-1743 London)
Portrait of King Carl XII of Sweden (1682-1718), three-quarter-length, in a green coat over a steel cuirass, holding a commander's baton and wearing a sword, a fortress beyond
oil on canvas
49½ x 40 in. (125.7 x 101.7 cm.)

Provenance

Nial Rinve (according to an inscription on the frame).
with Historical Portraits, London, when acquired by the present owner.

Special notice

All sold and unsold lots marked with a filled square in the catalogue that are not cleared from Christie’s by 5:00 pm on the day of the sale, and all sold and unsold lots not cleared from Christie’s by 5:00 pm on the fifth Friday following the sale, will be removed to the warehouse of ‘Cadogan Tate’. Please note that there will be no charge to purchasers who collect their lots within two weeks of this sale.

Lot Essay

King Carl XII succeeded to the Swedish throne in 1697 and his reign was dominated by the Great Northern War (1700-1721) in which Sweden's supremacy in the Baltic was challenged by an alliance which included Russia, Denmark and Poland, which finally ended with the Treaty of Nystad and the Stockholm Treaties. This portrait relates, with notable variations, to a three-quarter-length portrait of King Carl XII in the National Museum, Stockholm. The Stockholm portrait is dated circa 1700-1710 and is believed to have been ordered by the Swedish envoy in London, Count Karl Gyllenborg, and painted after a sculpture (W. Nisser, Michael Dahl and the Contemporary Swedish School of Painting in England, Uppsala, 1927, pp. 11-2, pl. XXXVI).

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