This portrait is signed and dated on the right ‘Antonius mor[?us] / pingebat 1554’. It was acquired by Charles I as a companion portrait to RCIN 403945 of Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy (also by Mor). However, it is unlikely that the two works were created as a pair, since the sitters both face the same way and the compositions do not balance well.

The identification of the sitter as Christina of Denmark is based on facial similarities to other firmly identified portraits (for example the celebrated portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger in the National Gallery, London). Christina was born in February 1522, the youngest surviving child of Christian II of Denmark and Isabella of Austria (see RCIN 405782). In 1533 she married Francecso Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan (d.1535) and in 1541 she married Francis, Duke of Lorraine. The sitter’s dress is lined with fur and its dark colour indicates her status as a widow.

Anthonis Mor was working in England in 1554 and may have painted the portrait there. At that time, Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy was also in England, and it had been proposed that he should marry the widowed Duchess of Milan and Lorraine. The marriage negotiations never came to fruition, but they may explain the commissioning of this portrait and the eventual painting of it with a portrait of Christina’s unsuccessful suitor.