Studio: international art (59.1913)

The Chdteau of Rosenborg, Copenhagen

pilasters support the ceiling, in which, too, paintings
have been let in. These are supposed to have
been painted by the artists Momper and Breughel,
and though not, at least several of them, possessed
of any marked artistic merit, their decorative effect
is indisputable. The handsome fireplace of marble
and sandstone is ornamented with the king’s mono-
gram and bears the date 1615. Of furniture, luckily,
there is but little; a few chairs, into the velvet
cover of which the king’s monogram and motto,
R.F.P. (Regna firmat -bietas), are woven in gold;
there are a few stools, an old oak coffer of which
part is seen in our illustration, and a handsome
Renaissance cabinet also shown in the picture. The
coffer is covered with green velvet and has finely
designed yet not too elaborate iron mountings; it
bears the date 1599 and the entwined initials of
King Christian IV and Queen Anna Catharina.
Coffers of this kind, simple or otherwise, were
in frequent use at the time and are still to be met
with. Some few years older than the above-men-
tioned coffer is the cabinet referred to; it is made
of ebony and gilded plaques, in which latter are
embossed and graven Biblical and mythological
scenes, executed after “ Biblische Figuren der alten
und newen Testaments, gantz Kunstlich gerissen
Durch den weitberhiimpten Vergilum Solis zu

Niirnberg, Frankfurt am Main, 1560.” It is a very
fine specimen of the elaborate cabinets in which
the craftsmen of several German towns at that
period excelled, and of which not a few have found
their way to the residences of Danish and Swedish
kings and noblemen, amongst other mediums
through that of the Thirty Years War. The
Rosenborg cabinet rests on four gilded lions, but
the stand, as is generally the case, is of much
later origin.

King Christian IV was a fine fellow, good in war-
fare, in tournaments, and over a beaker, and though
able to stand more than most of his confreres
he frankly recorded in his diary when he too had
taken more on board than he could conveniently
carry. Hence Rosenborg was often the scene of
banquets and revelry, both during his reign and
later. Thus, on April 14, 1771, a dinner-party
was given in this apartment by King Christian VII
and Queen Caroline Mathilde, the sister of King
George III of Great Britain, amongst the guests
being the then omnipotent Struensee, who wrecked
her life and paid for his audacious liaison with his
head, Brandt, his faithful friend who had to share
his cruel fate, and the latter’s amour, the Countess
Holstein, besides some high court functionaries.
In less than a year there was another banquet

110

CHRISTIAN IV’S AUDIENCE CHAMBER, FORMERLY KNOWN AS THE QUEEN’S APARTMENT