| Queen Christina Wasa of Sweden (1626-1689), an eccentric personality, attempted throughout her life to fabricate a public identity based on wealth, power, religion, intellect, and gender ambiguity. After abdicating her throne at age 28, Christina settled in Rome and converted to Catholicism. Her Roman Palazzo Riario (today Corsini) served as a museum of antiquities, a school of art, and a locus for scientific debate. As the center of this cultural activity, Christina's stanza dei quadri served as a small audience chamber and was visited by foreign dignitaries, artists, intellectuals, cardinals, and the pope. The room also held Christina's most prized art objects. Most of these were erotic, mythological paintings by Veronese, Titian, Correggio, and other Italian Renaissance artists, but there were also a few religious works by artists such as Raphael. In addition, the room housed a sculpted mirror frame by Bernini, an antique bronze head of Alexander the Great, and portraits by Jacopo Bassano and Antonio Van Dyck. Christina amassed these works through acquisitions in Rome, a commission in the case of Bernini's mirror, and her plunder of Emperor Rudolf II's castle when she still sat on the Swedish throne.;In this thesis, I consider how Christina's collection and display of art in her stanza dei quadri played a role in her construction of a public image. I examine the intersection between religious and secular imagery, the balance of classical, Renaissance and contemporary works, and the overwhelming amount of erotic content lining the walls of the room. Following an examination of early modern European gender construction, I analyze how Christina utilized these works to represent herself as powerful and masculine despite her female sex. I investigate the stanza dei quadri as a place of spectacle where the works, the visitors and Christina herself were viewed. |
