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| Jeremias Falck Christina, Queen of Sweden, as Minerva before 1677 engraving Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge |
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| Jan van de Velde after David Beck Christina, Queen of Sweden ca. 1654 engraving and aquatint British Museum |
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| attributed to Alberto Hamerani Portrait Medallion of Queen Christina 1654 bronze Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Sébastien Bourdon Portrait of Queen Christina ca. 1653 oil on canvas Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| Francesco Maria Nocchieri Apollo (commissioned by Queen Christina to preside over her grouping of "restored" antique Muses) ca. 1670 marble Palacio Real de la Granja de San Ildefonso |
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| Camillo Arcucci Sala delle Muse, Palazzo Riario, Rome ca. 1670 drawings Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
"In the Hall of the Muses, Queen Christina displayed some of the most prominent works in her collections. Two drawings by the architect Camillo Arcucci provide a unique visual source to help reconstruct the hall's original aspect. Ancient statues of eight Muses on similar pedestals were displayed again the walls, and sixteen ancient busts were installed on top of marble columns. Accompanying the Muses was a modern marble statue of Apollo [above], carved by Francesco Maria Nocchieri. Nocchieri's statue had the primary function of completing the iconographical theme of the room, but . . . it was also displayed to trigger comparison with the antique Muses [below]."
– Anne-Lise-Desmas and Francesco Freddolini, from Display of Art in the Roman Palace, edited by Gail Feigenbaum (Getty Research Institute, 2014)
The authors do not discuss the fact that the eight "antique" muses in the Hall of the Muses were broken chunks of masonry when acquired by Christina, without heads or attributes. These missing pieces were new-carved and tacked on by Nocchieri and his colleague Ercole Ferrata, who also added various limbs and extremities of their own invention, while smoothing out and re-carving existing details. Curators at the Prado, where the Muses now reside, note that later research has revealed Nocchieri and Ferrata misidentified seven of the eight figures. The museum continues to display the set with the names and incorrect attributes Nocchieri and Ferrata assigned, rather than reverting to the intentions of the ancient Romans responsible for the surviving authentic fragments. This is consistent with the predominating appearance of the sculptures as works of seventeenth-century art and taste. Yet the Prado, like the writers above and below, continues to classify and discuss the objects as genuine antiquities, rather than baroque pastiches.
It is also reported elsewhere that Queen Christina was in the habit of seating herself on a sort of throne among her eight carved Muses, intending and expecting to be recognized as the ninth.
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| Francesco Maria Nocchieri and Ercole Ferrata The Muse Calliope (headless Roman torso, 2nd century AD, extended and redefined for Queen Christina) ca. 1670 marble Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| Francesco Maria Nocchieri and Ercole Ferrata The Muse Clio (headless Roman torso, 2nd century AD, extended and redefined for Queen Christina) ca. 1670 marble Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| Francesco Maria Nocchieri and Ercole Ferrata The Muse Erato (headless Roman torso, 2nd century AD, extended and redefined for Queen Christina) ca. 1670 marble Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| Francesco Maria Nocchieri and Ercole Ferrata The Muse Euterpe (headless Roman torso, 2nd century AD, extended and redefined for Queen Christina) ca. 1670 marble Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| Francesco Maria Nocchieri and Ercole Ferrata The Muse Polyhymnia (headless Roman torso, 2nd century AD, extended and redefined for Queen Christina) ca. 1670 marble Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| Francesco Maria Nocchieri and Ercole Ferrata The Muse Terpsichore (headless Roman torso, 2nd century AD, extended and redefined for Queen Christina) ca. 1670 marble Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| Francesco Maria Nocchieri and Ercole Ferrata The Muse Thalia (headless Roman torso, 2nd century AD, extended and redefined for Queen Christina) ca. 1670 marble Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| Francesco Maria Nocchieri and Ercole Ferrata The Muse Urania (headless Roman torso, 2nd century AD, extended and redefined for Queen Christina) ca. 1670 marble Museo del Prado, Madrid |
" . . . the antique statue of Clithe [below], newly restored by Giulio Cartari, was shown at the center of the architectural space [in the "sixth room" of Queen Christina's Palazzo Riario in Rome], surrounded by seven antique statues, eleven antique busts, and a female bust carved by the young Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The protagonist of the room was undoubtedly Clithe, yet, by being displayed among antiquities, Bernini's work acquired the status of a prodigious achievement; the artist was exhibited among – and compared to – the authority of the antique."
– Anne-Lise-Desmas and Francesco Freddolini, from Display of Art in the Roman Palace, edited by Gail Feigenbaum (Getty Research Institute, 2014)
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| Giulio Cartari Clytie (headless Roman torso, AD 130-150, extended, reconfigured, and combined with other fragments by Cartari) ca. 1675 marble Museo del Prado, Madrid |
Despite the rhetoric, Christina displayed nothing that was solely and originally "antique" – the cadre of minor sculptors transforming Christina's antique fragments into acceptably complete statues were Bernini's protegees for the most part, working in the prevailing contemporary style he had defined. Their contributions to those fragments were so overwhelming that the finished pieces they put on display for the Queen spoke far more vigorously for modern than for ancient Rome. To set Bernini's work beside theirs was to set like beside like. The "authority of the antique" as observed by seventeenth-century collectors and connoisseurs of art was, in fact, largely spurious.