QUEEN CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN & DESCARTES

This painting by Pierre Louis Dumesnil the Younger depicts Queen Christina and members of her court listening to Descartes giving a philosophy lesson. Christina insisted that the lessons he given at five O’clock in the morning, three days a week. The lessons lasted around five hours. The combination of early rising and the exceptionally harsh Swedish winter led to Descartes falling serious ill, and to his death from pneumonia on February 11, 1650