Christian VII (1749-1808), King of Denmark

Christian VII, King of Denmark, was painted by Dance during the Danish king's visit to London in 1768—a diplomatic event that attracted considerable attention given the King's mental instability, which was already causing political problems in Copenhagen. Christian VII suffered from what modern psychiatry would likely diagnose as schizophrenia, and his reign was dominated by court factions and eventually by the reform ministry of Johann Friedrich Struensee, his queen's lover. Dance's portrait, painted during the royal visit when Christian's condition was perhaps less visibly apparent, gives him the formal dignity of kingship without the pathos of his actual state. The portrait documents the diplomatic formalities through which Georgian courts maintained royal relations.

Dance renders the young king with the ceremonial dignity appropriate to a state portrait, though the youthful face and somewhat uncertain bearing perhaps hint at the fragility that contemporaries were beginning to notice.