Going once, going twice... Soon, members of the public will have the opportunity to acquire a very royal work of art, when a painting by none other than H.M. Queen Margrethe II goes under the hammer in March
Queen Margrethe II may have stepped down from the Danish throne, but she has by no means set down her paintbrushes. Her creative streak is no secret, with the former queen holding a lifelong fascination with drawing, painting and other pursuits – with her works regularly featuring in both local and international exhibitions. The 83-year-old royal even designed costumes and sets for Netflix's popular period drama Ehrengard: The Art of Seduction.
While Margrethe II's artistic ability does not come as a surprise, the opportunity to be able to acquire one of her works does. This March, a painting which the royal created in 1988 as a personal gift to her then Court Marshal, Hans Sølvhøj (1919–1989, will go up for auction. “The work by HM Queen Margrethe II is from the year she began to exhibit officially,” says Niels Boe-Hauggaard, Bruun Rasmussen's specialist and head of the department of modern art. “Her list of exhibitions is impressively long, but the works rarely come up for sale. So, there are only a few paintings, such as this one, which one has the opportunity to acquire, because they come directly from people who have had a close relationship with the queen.”
The work was painted by Queen Margrethe II in 1988 for her Court Marshal at the time.
Boe-Hauggaard confirms how unusual is it for a work by the queen to become available to own. “We are very much looking forward to offering this work by H.M. Queen Margrethe II, which testifies to her immense passion for and prolificacy within art and creative work,” he says. “Her great activity in the field has long been known to the public, but it is extremely rare for us to see her works at auction.”
According to Boe-Hauggaard, the painting is executed in acrylic on canvas, with a motif arising from impressions of nature depicted as a poetic abstraction.“The queen found her inspiration for the painting up for auction in the natural world, expressing it in a lyrical idiom. It is a highly personal artistic universe.”
The painting by H.M. Queen Margrethe II will feature at Bruun Rasmussen’s Live Auction at the beginning of March at Nørgaardsvej 3 in Lyngby. It is estimated at DKK 75,000–100,000.