"What Madame? Before the Queen?"

On 15 March, 44 BC, Gaius Julius Caesar (100 BC - 44 BC), roman general, governor, writer and politician, was assassinated in the senate by some 60 conspirators.

On January 1st, in 42 B.C., Gaius Julius Caesar was posthumously deified by a decree of the Roman Senate. During the games that were held later that year in his honour, a comet appeared for seven days straight, which was taken as further proof of his divine status.

These enamel earrings in the shape of hands hold pieces of shrapnel removed from the eye and forehead of Denmark’s King Christian IV after he was wounded in battle. He gave the earrings to his mistress. 

Porrtrait of Elizabeth Seymour, Duchess of Somerset (1667-1722) by Henri Gascar (c. 1635- 1701)

Portrait of Anne Stanley (1580-1647), Countess of Castlehaven - Colorised engraving from a painting by Cornelis Janssens van Ceulen (1593-1661), from the Iberic Illustration, 1891

Philip IV and Elizabeth of Bourbon from the monastery of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas (Burgos)

(Private collection via Christie's)

Isabel I, Ferdinand II, and their daughter Juana.

Nationalmuseum (Stockholm),   Inv. NMGrh 3058

before 1622 Frans Pourbus the Younger

— Mary II of England (1662-1694)

Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan, c. 1538, by Hans Holbein

Maria Manuela of Portugal, Princess of Asturias as the first wife of the future Philip II.

Queen Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden by Johan David Schwartz, 1725

Portrait of Francesco I d'Este, Duke of Modena (1638) by Diego Velázquez. Galleria Estense.

Maria Magdalena of Austria by Frans Pourbus the Younger, 1603-04

(Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna)