Queen Caroline Mathilde (Study for the painting Scene from the Court of Christian VII, exhibited in 1873 )

Kristian Zahrtmann was a Danish painter known for his colorful, expressively handled paintings of Italian peasant life and Danish historical subjects. This 1872 study depicts Queen Caroline Mathilde, the tragic English-born Danish queen whose affair with court physician Johann Friedrich Struensee led to her imprisonment and exile. Zahrtmann returned repeatedly to this historical subject throughout his career, drawn by the combination of royal intrigue, Enlightenment politics, and personal suffering it embodied. The Nivaagaard Museum holds this study as preparation for the large exhibited painting of 1873. These preparatory studies are often among the most freely handled of Zahrtmann's works, capturing compositional ideas before the constraints of final execution.

As a preparatory study, the handling is necessarily more spontaneous than the finished work — forms are suggested with quick, confident brushwork rather than elaborated. The palette and compositional arrangement would establish the visual logic of the larger painting. The color is likely warm, as Zahrtmann favored rich, saturated tones even in preparatory stages.