Leonora Christina and Dina Vijnhofvers
Artist: Kristian Zahrtmann (Danish, 1843-1917)
Date: 1910
Medium: Oil on canvas
Collection: Finnish National Gallery Collection / Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki, Finland
Leonora Christina Ulfeldt
Leonora Christina, Countess Ulfeldt, born "Countess Leonora Christina Christiansdatter" (1621 – 1698), was daughter to King Christian IV of Denmark and Kirsten Munk and wife of the Steward of the Realm, the traitor Count Corfitz Ulfeldt. Renowned in Denmark since the 19th century for her posthumously published autobiography Jammers Minde, written secretly during two decades of solitary confinement in a royal dungeon, her intimate version of the major events she witnessed in Europe's history, interwoven with ruminations on her woes as a political prisoner, still commands popular interest and scholarly respect, and has virtually become the stuff of legend as retold and enlivened in Danish literature and art.
