Queen Christina of Sweden as Diana

In the summer of 1654 Christina of Sweden gave up her crown, and she spent the months that followed in the Spanish Netherlands, much of the time in Antwerp. That year the Flemish painter Justus van Egmont, who had worked in the studio of Rubens, painted her as Minerva, goddess of wisdom. Here he shows her as another virgin goddess, Diana the huntress, a choice that suited a woman who had made up her mind never to marry.

The museum dates this canvas between 1665 and 1674, by which time the queen had long been a Catholic living in Rome. From 1659 until her death in 1689 she lived in Palazzo Riario, the house that stood on this site before the Corsini rebuilt it. The painting was given to the Italian state in 1992. The museum's own description of her adds that she spoke seven languages and wore men's shoes.