Albert Edelfelt

Queen Blanka is one of Finland's most beloved paintings. Albert Edelfelt painted it in Paris in his studio at 24 rue Bonaparte in the Latin Quarter and exhibited it as his debut painting at the Salon, the same year he finished his art studies. The main theme of the painting is maternal happiness, and the semi-historical genre painting was inspired by the nursery rhyme 'Rida ranka' published by Zacharis Topelius in 'Läsning för barn' (Reading for Children), published in Helsinki in 1872.

It is based on the legend of Queen Blanche of Namur (1320-1362), born in a province in central Belgium, and her husband, the Swedish-Norwegian Union King Magnus Eriksson (1316-1374). Of the couple's two sons, the younger son Håkan married Margaretha, who was Valdemar Atterdag's daughter from Denmark. In Topelius' saga, Queen Blanka makes marriage plans for her young son, who would one day rule the entire Nordic region through marriage.

In the summer of 1872, Edelfelt had admired a portrait of Queen Blanka at Gripsholm Castle, painted by an unknown artist. He recounted this in an interview in Hufvudstadsbladet in 1903. With this in mind, he painted the study now for sale in Paris. It bears a striking resemblance to the portrait in Gripsholm. The model has dark hair parted in the middle, dressed in white linen and painted within an oval on the square base. The Gripsholm painting is composed in the same way, except that she wears a crown and sceptre.

Edelfelt used this model as a figure model for the mother and later replaced her face with another model that was fair-haired. He had studied Viollet-le-Duc's recent study of 14th-century clothing and furniture, among other things, and concluded that most medieval beauties were blonde. In total, Edelfelt painted two models and a large mannequin. This first model, with her ample bosom showing one nipple, was in his studio when the Swedish artist George Pauli visited. At first Edelfelt had no suitable costumes for the model. Later he constructed a simple silk dress, which was only attached at the seams with pins. About the visit to Edelfelt's studio Pauli writes the following;

"I wonder what Edelfelt's mother would have said if she had seen her son's ‘Parisian's’ simple lodgings /.../ Edelfelt was busy with studies for his first salon painting ‘Queen Blanka’. Here and there various drafts and several different drawings, some of them after a nude model in the same position as Blanka".

The work is dedicated to the opera singer Filip Forstén (1852-1932), who belonged to Edelfelt's circle of friends in Paris during his studies at the Conservatory from 1874 to 1877. Forstén was later appointed professor and served at the Vienna Opera.

Marina Catani