Triple Portrait of Henrietta Maria Triple Portrait of Henrietta Maria The Triple Portrait of Henrietta Maria is a 1638 painting by Antony van Dyck showing Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I of England. Charles had previously commissioned van Dyck to produce a triple portrait of himself to send to Italy so that Bernini could produce a bust of him. When the bust arrived, the queen ordered a bust of herself by Bernini and commissioned van Dyck to produce a similar triple portrait. The left-facing profile and full-on view are in the Royal Collection, whilst the right-facing profile is probably the portrait of the queen now
Henrietta Maria of France marked her out as different and potentially dangerous in the English society of the time, which feared Catholic subversion and terrorism like the Gunpowder Plot, and led to her becoming an unpopular queen. Henrietta Maria has been criticised as being an "intrinsically apolitical, undereducated and frivolous" figure during the 1630s; others have suggested that she exercised a degree of personal power through a combination of her piety, her femininity and her sponsorship of the arts. Henrietta Maria had strong Catholic beliefs, which would heavily influence her time as queen, and particularly the initial years following her marriage. Charles liked to