Queen Margrethe posed for the cover of a new book outlining her 50-year-reign of Denmark using a century-old photographic method with a camera that was reportedly used during the American Civil War in the mid-1800s.
For the upcoming book, Monark og menneske (Monarch and Man), Queen Margrethe sat for a portrait by Jan Grarup, using a wetplate camera from 1896 with a lens that dates back to 1856. Grarup set up a mobile darkroom at Amalienborg for the Danish monarch to pose.
The Danish Royal Household said, “During the shoot, the person portrayed must sit still for five to seven seconds, after which the actual development of the subject involves liquid silver, collodion and other chemical components.”
Monark og menneske, which was released earlier this week, is a personal history of Queen Margrethe’s 50-year-reign of Denmark that includes insights from the queen and those who know her best.
Among those interviewed for the book are foreign royals including King Willem-Alexander, Crown Princess Victoria, Crown Prince Haakon. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen also participated, as did Ambassador Ulrik Federspiel, and two of Queen Margrethe’s closest friends, Birgitta Hillingsø and Marianne Haslund-Christensen.
The book’s publishers say that Monark og menneske explores the “pillars on which Queen Margrethe’s life rests: the family, the nation, the kingdom, history, faith and art, and the geologist Minik Rosing and the painter Trondur Patursson talk about the relationship with Greenland and the Faroe Islands.”
Queen Margrethe has discussed her own memories of the past 50 years in the book, with the publishers noting that the combination of her personal remembrances and those who know her “form a warm and vivid portrait of a ruler who has represented Denmark externally and united the country internally.”
Queen Margrethe will formally celebrate her Golden Jubilee in January 2022. The Danish Royal Household has released an itinerary for engagements from 10-16 January, which Royal Central has outlined here.
