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“Fashionably attired in a rose-colored dress with low-cut bodice and flowing sleeves, Catherine Howard, Lady d'Aubigny, looks over her shoulder with a proud and forthright gaze as she holds a floral wreath in her right hand. […] In the Arcadian ambience of the Stuart court, the floral wreath would have been recognized as a symbol of love and marriage.”

“For this portrait, [Gustav] Klimt employed soft, sinuous strokes of paint to present Serena as an apparition in white. ‘An upright flower, long-stemmed . . . Like a black tulip,’ enthused one critic when the painting was exhibited in 1901 at the Vienna Secession, a group founded by Klimt and other artists with the aim of putting the city at the forefront of the international art world.”

“In alchemy, the swan represents the union of opposites necessary for the creation of what is known as the philosopher's stone, a substance believed to be capable of turning base metals into gold. Here, [Hilma] af Klint's black-and-white palette underscores the dualities of light and dark, male and female, life and death.”

17th-Century Portrait Miniatures of the Stuart Queen Consorts:

(1) Anne of Denmark (c. 1611-12) by Isaac Oliver

(2) Henrietta Maria of France (c. 1635) by David des Granges

(3) Catherine of Braganza (c. 1660-61) by David des Granges