Queen Anne (1665-1714)

This 1702 portrait of Queen Anne in the Royal Collection was painted at the beginning of a reign that would prove one of the most consequential in British history — ending the Stuart dynasty, uniting England and Scotland through the Act of Union of 1707, and establishing the constitutional framework of parliamentary monarchy. Anne's reign also produced the War of the Spanish Succession, Marlborough's military triumphs, and the political conflicts that would shape Georgian politics for decades. Kneller's portrait of the new queen at the beginning of her reign established the visual identity of the last Stuart monarch, whose image he would continue to paint throughout her twelve-year reign.

The state portrait presents Anne with full monarchical grandeur, the coronation regalia and rich robes of state rendered with Kneller's experienced attention to the symbolic vocabulary of royal image-making.