The Pictorial Representation of Margaret of Austria, Queen of Spain: Between Luxury and Devotion

Abstract

The fame of Margaret of Austria-Styria (1584–1611) transcends her time not only as queen consort of Philip III of Spain, but also as a woman valued for all kinds of virtues. Her early death at the age of twenty-seven generated the development of an extensive laudatory literature, which elevated her as a model example for other queens of the House of Austria. Since her arrival in Spain in 1599, Margaret had a special interest in portraiture, using it as a means of maintaining contact with the various members of her family. This article presents a survey of her portrait repertoire, based on extant portraits, but also official chronicles, the descriptions of her portraits in royal inventories and the accounts of the chamber painters, which are fundamental to our knowledge of her portraits and the circumstances of her commissions. From her first images as Philip’s bride, through all her portraits as queen, to the portraits made after her death, these images highlight the originality of her representation. Margaret’s originality lies in her focus on the extreme ostentation of luxury in her clothing and jewellery, connected to the sophisticated fashion of the time. She also developed, in addition to the official portraits of the royal couple, a more private iconography, which is highly unusual in that it shows her pregnant, or in the guise of a sacred personage, with a clearly devotional character.

Notes

1 ‘The most distinguished, beautiful and most illustrious / the one who at her side all are sparks, being the Sun that gives lustre to your courage, Queen of Spain’, in Rodrigo Riquelme de Montalvo, Las reales exequias que la ciudad de Murcia celebró en su Yglesia catedral a la muerte de doña Margarita de Austria, mujer del Monarca don Felipe Tercero (Orihuela, 1612), fol. 5r., Canto I.

2 Magdalena Sánchez, The Empress, the Queen and the Nun: Women and Power at the Court of Philip III of Spain (Baltimore, 1998); Magdalena Sánchez, ‘Mujeres, piedad e influencia política en la corte’, in José Martínez Millán and María Antonietta Visceglia (eds), La monarquía de Felipe III: La Corte (Madrid, 2008), vol. III, pp. 146-63.

3 Roberta Menicucci, ‘“El sol de España y las mediceas estrellas”: la política toscana hacia la corona española’, in Cristina Acidini Luchinat (ed.), Glorias efímeras. Las exequias florentinas por Felipe II y Margarita de Austria (cat. exp., Sala Municipal de Exposiciones del Museo de la Pasión, Valladolid, octubre 1999-enero 2000) (Madrid, 1999), pp. 63-76, notes that the Tuscan ambassadors reflect this change in the Queen’s attitude in their epistolary correspondence.

4 On this, see José Martínez Millán, ‘La Casa de una reina católica: Margarita de Austria (1598–1611)’, in Leticia Sánchez Hernández (ed.), Mujeres en la corte de los Austrias. Una red social, cultural, religiosa y política (Madrid, 2019), pp. 315-60.

5 Pantoja’s accounts between the years 1603 and 1608 were transcribed by Ricardo de Aguirre, ‘Documentos relativos a la pintura en España, Juan Pantoja de la Cruz, pintor de cámara’, Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursionistas 30 (1922), pp. 17-22, 270-74; and 31 (1923), pp. 201-05. For the documents of the accounts of Santiago Moran, see Juan José Junquera, ‘Las Descalzas Reales de Valladolid y algunas de sus pinturas y esculturas,’ Archivo Español de Arte 182 (1973), pp. 159-80. The accounts of Bartolomé González Serrano, between the years 1608 and 1621, were transcribed by José Moreno Villa and Francisco Javier Sánchez Cantón, ‘Noventa y siete retratos de la familia de Felipe III por Bartolomé González’, Archivo Español de Arte y Arqueología 38 (1937), pp. 127-57. For more on this painter, see Lucía Varela Merino, ‘Muerte de Villandrando, ¿fortuna de Velázquez?’, Anuario del Departamento de Historia y Teoría del Arte 11 (1999), pp. 186-87. In a room in the palace of Coudenberg in Brussels, the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia created a gallery of portraits of her relatives, which were sent to her by Philip III and the duke of Lerma. In a letter dated May 1610, she informed Lerma how much she enjoyed them, ‘the greatest adornment of my life are the portraits, with which I spend my life, since I cannot enjoy them alive’, in Antonio Rodríguez Villa (ed.), Correspondencia de la Infanta Archiduquesa Doña Isabel Clara Eugenia de Austria con el Duque de Lerma y otros personajes (Madrid, 1906), p. 215.

6 Pinheiro da Veiga, Fastiginia o Fastos Geniales, p. 77, described her as follows when he saw her in Valladolid on the occasion of the birth of her daughter Ana Mauricia on 22 September 1601: ‘Es la reina blanca y rubia y tiene buena presencia y sería bella si no la afeara mucho la boca, que tiene muy caída y gruesa como todos los Austrias’. (‘She is a white and blonde queen and has a good presence and would be beautiful if her mouth did not disfigure her too much, which is very droopy and thick like all the Habsburgs’).

7 Inventario de los bienes de Juan Pantoja de la Cruz, Madrid, 3 November 1608, in Archivo General de Protocolos de Madrid, Escribano Ruiz de Tapia, Leg. 2275, fol. 505, for the heads; and fol. 509, for the jewels, as cited in María Kusche, Juan Pantoja de la Cruz y sus seguidores: Bartolomé González, Rodrigo de Villandrando y Andrés López Polanco (Madrid, 2007), pp. 495-96.

8 See footnote 5. Archivo General de Palacio, Madrid [hereafter AGP], Sección Administrativa, Leg. 902.

9 Annemarie Jordan and Almudena Pérez de Tudela, ‘Luxury Goods for Royal Collectors: Exotica, Princely Gifts and Rare Animals exchanged between the Iberian Courts and Central Europe in the Renaissance (1560–1612)’, Jahrbuch des Kunshistorischen Museum Wien 3 (2001), p. 20, note 146, highlights this interest in jewellery of the Archduchess Maria of Bavaria.

10 These portraits for matrimonial purposes can be connected to the Austrian painter Jakob de Monte’s stay at the Austrian-Styrian court in Graz. In a note from Philip II to Guillén de San Clemente, Spanish ambassador to the Imperial court, dated 15 June 1595 in Madrid, he informs him, ‘que el embaxador Khevenhüller quando vino esta última vez de Alemania truxo retratos de algunas dellas’ (‘that the ambassador Khevenhüller, when he came this last time from Germany, brought portraits of some of them’), referring to the daughters of Archduke Charles, in Archivo General de Simancas, Estado, Leg. 2450, n.d., published by Almudena Pérez de Tudela, ‘La educación artística y la imagen del príncipe Felipe (III)’, in Martínez Millán and Visceglia (eds), La monarquía de Felipe III, vol. III, pp. 142-43. Some historians, including Diego de Guzmán, Reyna católica: vida y muerte de Doña Margarita de Austria reyna de España (Madrid, 1617), fols 42r.-47r., or Hans Khevenhüller, Diario de Hans Khevenhüller: Embajador Imperial en la corte de Felipe II, transcribed by Félix Labrador Arroyo, (Madrid, 2001), pp. 468-69 and 484, indicate the fundamental role that Philip II and his daughter Isabella Clara Eugenia played in the choice of bride for the Spanish heir, which on three occasions focused on the daughters of Archduke Charles, since, in addition to their profound religious education, they constituted the best choice for the stability of the Spanish Monarchy. The sudden death of the eldest unwed daughter Katharina Renata in 1595 and of Gregoria Maximiliana in 1597 meant that the nomination fell to Margaret, the eighth child, whose marriage contract was finalised on 24 September 1598, a few days after the death of Philip II. The papal dispensation for this marriage had been granted the previous year, on 21 April 1597: Juan Ignacio Tellechea Idígoras, El papado y Felipe II: colección de breves pontificios (1572–1598) (Madrid, 2004), vol. II, pp. 258-61.

11 Francisco Javier Sánchez Cantón, ‘Sobre la vida y las obras de Juan Pantoja de la Cruz’, Archivo Español de Arte 78 (1947), p. 115, wrongly attributes it to Pantoja, dating it to the year of his marriage. Patrimonio Nacional, Inv. 00612228, oil on canvas, 64×44 cm.

12 Archivo del Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales de Madrid, Caja 64, exp. 11, letter of 5 November 1598; published in Almudena Pérez de Tudela, ‘Crear, coleccionar, mostrar e intercambiar objetos (1566–1599): fuentes de archivo relacionadas con las pertenencias de la infanta’, in Cordula van Wyhe (ed.), Isabel Clara Eugenia. Soberanía femenina en las cortes de Madrid y Bruselas (Madrid, 2011), p. 63.

13 Francisco Balbi de Correggio, A la serenissima y catholica Margarita de Austria reyna de Espagna (Ferrara, 1598); Francisco Balbi de Correggio, Sonetos de Francisco Balbi dedicados a la S.C.R. Magestad de la Reyna de España, Margarita de Austria, en su muy alto y muy deseado casamiento (Milan, 1599); Ioan Paolo Mocante, Relación de la solene entrada hecha en Ferrara a los 13 dias de Noviembre MDXCVIII por la Serenissima S. Doña Margarita de Austria Reyna de España, y del Consistorio publico con todos los aparatos que Su S.Y.S.N. Clemente Papa VIII mando hazer y hizo para tal affecto (Rome, 1598); Giovanni Paolo Mucanzio, Relación de la solene entrada hecha en Ferrara a los 13 días de noviembre MDXCVIII, por la Serenissima S. Doña Margarita de Austria, Reyna de España …  (Rome, 1598). See also Guzmán, Reyna católica, fols 58v. and 59r. The painting El papa Clemente VIII celebra las bodas de Margarita de Austria y Felipe III de España, attributed to Niccolò Betti, oil on canvas, 212×207 cm (Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, Inv. 2712), is a good graphic depiction of their wedding. It is part of a series of paintings commissioned by Cosimo II de Medici years later to commemorate a funeral held for Margaret in Florence in 1612. See note 58.

14 Margaret’s subsequent entry into Madrid on 24 October 1599 is detailed in Archivo Secretariado Ayuntamiento de Madrid, 4-122-15, published by Virginia Tovar Martín, ‘Entrada triunfal en Madrid de Doña Margarita de Austria (24 de octubre de 1599)’, Archivo Español de Arte (1988), p. 394. In this source, it is described that in the Arco de San Jerónimo designed by Francisco de Mora at the upper end of Santa Catalina street was painted, ‘un anillo con una perla que en latín se llama Margarita teniendo dos ángeles asido por los lados’ (‘a ring with a pearl that in Latin is called Margarita, with two angels holding it by the sides’). See Annemarie Jordan, ‘Imagen de una reina a principios del Barroco: Margarita de Austria y las joyas de la corona española’, in Martínez Millán and Visceglia (eds), La monarquía de Felipe III, vol. III, p. 179. In the inventories of the Royal Guardajoyas, the most beloved pearl, La Peregrina, is called ‘Margarita’, because of its direct relationship with this queen.

15 Luis Cabrera de Córdoba, Relaciones de las Cosas Sucedidas en la Corte de España, desde 1599 hasta 1614 (Madrid, 1857), pp. 13-14.

16 Guzmán, Reyna católica, fol. 94v.

17 Giovanni Battista Confaloniero, Relación del aparato que se hizo en la ciudad de Valencia para el recibimiento de la Serenissima Reyna Margarita de Austria desposada con el Catholico y potentissimo rey de España don Phelipe Tercero deste nombre (Valencia, 1599), p. 10.

18 Biblioteca Nacional de España, Iconografía Hispana, 2.947-25: Intaglio, 303×251 mm, unsigned. Elena Santiago, ‘Matrimonio de Felipe III y Margarita de Austria’, in Elena Santiago (ed.), Los Austrias. Grabados de la Biblioteca Nacional (cat. exp. Biblioteca Nacional de España, Madrid, 1993) (Madrid, 1993), pp. 206-07, n. 198, relates this print to the intaglio of Isabella Clara Eugenia and Albert of Austria in full length, engraved by Johan Collaert on a composition by Otto Vaenius included in the repertoire Ducum Brabantiae Chronica compiled by Adriaan Baerland, Antwerp, Officina Plantiniana, 1600.

19 Natalia Horcajo Palomero, ‘Últimas disposiciones de Felipe II sobre ciertas joyas’, Reales Sitios 123 (1995), pp. 5-6, reports that this large 28-carat square diamond, cut by the lapidary Adrian Bacler, was bought by Philip II in Lisbon between 1581 and 1583, and given to Philip III when he was Crown Prince. Margaret received this ‘large diamond’ in Milan on her way to Spain.

20 These portraits continued to be in the Alcázar of Madrid throughout the seventeenth century: as seen in 1636 in the ‘Pieça de las bóbedas que tiene puerta al jardín nuevo de la huerta de la Priora’, in Gloria Martínez Leiva and Ángel Rodríguez Rebollo (eds), Quadros y otras cosas tiene Su Magestad Felipe IV en este Alcázar de Madrid. Año de 1636 (Madrid, 2007), p. 116, nos 1037 and 1038; and in 1700 in the section on paintings that reads: ‘Prosiguen las pinturas Colgadas en los transittos frentte al Consejo de hacienda’, in Gloria Fernández Bayton (ed.), Inventarios reales. Testamentaría de Carlos II (1701–1703), (3 vols, Madrid, 1975), vol. I, p. 93.

21 ‘Saya blanca bordada con botones, cinta y collar de diamantes y perlas y una sarta de perlas al quello puesta la mano derecha, sobre un bufete y en ella el retrato del rey nuestro Señor y en la yzquierda un lienço guarnecido’, in AGP, Libros y Registros, leg. 235 and 236, p. 1823, transcribed in Fernando Checa (ed.), Inventarios de Felipe II. Inventario post mortem. Almoneda y Libro de remates. Inventario de tapices (Madrid, 2018), p. 575.

22 Oil on canvas, 126×86 cm. However, its partner, the portrait of Philip III, in the aforementioned Valencian College depicts him differently to the one mentioned in the Guardajoyas of the Alcázar, as he wears court costume and a cap adorned with jewels. Fernando Benito Domenech, ‘A propósito de unos cuadros inéditos de Antonio Ricci’, Archivo Español de Arte 207 (1979), pp. 350-55; and Fernando Benito Domenech, Pintura y pintores en el Real Colegio del Corpus Christi (Valencia, 1980), pp. 142-43 and 313-14, n. 223, both identify the young man in the miniature as the future Philip IV, not his father; while Ángel Rodríguez Rebollo, A Double Portrait by Antonio Ricci (Perugia, 2019), pp. 66-67, correctly recognises him as Philip III. For the Patriarch’s portrait gallery, see David García López, ‘Antonio Ricci en Madrid. 1586–1635’, Archivo Español de Arte 329 (2010), p. 77. I would like to thank Daniel Benito Goerlich, director of the Patriarca Museum in Valencia, for providing a reproduction of this portrait and authorising its publication.

23 Paola Venturelli, ‘La moda española entre las damas de Milán y Mantua (siglos XV–XVII)’, in José Luis Colomer and Amalia Descalzo (eds), Vestir a la española en las cortes europeas (siglos XVI y XVII) (Madrid, 2014), p. 95.

24 Kunsthistorisches Museum, Innsbruck, Inv. 3139: oil on canvas, 192×120 cm. Inscribed in the upper right corner: ‘MARGARITA ER: HER: ZU ÖSTER:KÖNIGIN IN SPANIEN’. Günther Heinz and Karl Schütz, Porträtgalerie zur geschichte Österreichs von 1400 bis 1800. Katalog der Gemäldegalerie (Vienna, 1982), pp. 130-31, n. 102.

25 Kusche, Juan Pantoja de la Cruz y sus seguidores, pp. 107-08. ‘Mudas’ is the name given to the cosmetics of the time: see Maribel Bandrés Oto, La moda en la pintura: Velázquez. Usos y costumbres del siglo XVII (Pamplona, 2002), p. 331.

26 On the joyel rico see: Jesús Hernández Perera, ‘Velázquez y las joyas’, Archivo Español de Arte 33, 130 (1960), pp. 272-73; Letizia Arbeteta, La joyería española de Felipe II a Alfonso XIII en los Museos Estatales (Madrid, 1998), pp. 22-32; Natalia Horcajo Palomero, ‘Reinas y joyas en la España del siglo XVI’, in El arte en las cortes de Carlos V y Felipe II. IX Jornadas de Arte (Madrid, 1999), pp. 141-50; Amelia Aranda Huete, ‘La joyería en la corte durante el reinado de Felipe V e Isabel de Farnesio’, Ph.D. thesis, Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Madrid, 1996), pp. 29-34; Fernando Rayón and José Luis Sampedro, Las joyas de las reinas de España. La desconocida historia de las alhajas reales (Madrid, 2004), pp. 139-61; Annemarie Jordan, ‘Imagen de una reina a principios del Barroco’, pp. 163-64, 176-77; Priscilla E. Muller, Joyas en España. 1500–1800 (New York and Madrid, 2012), pp. 58-59.

27 Arbeteta, La joyería española, pp. 30-31; and Jordan, ‘Imagen de una reina a principios del Barroco’, p. 173. It was originally reserved for the imperial ambassador Khevenhüller, but he eventually acted as an intermediary for its purchase by Philip II. See Pérez de Tudela and Jordan, ‘Luxury Goods for Royal Collectors’, p. 115.

28 Jorge Sebastián Lozano, ‘Representación femenina y arte aúlico en el XVII español. El caso de Margarita de Austria (1584–1611)’, in Isabel Duran et al. (eds), Estudios de la mujer en el ámbito de los países de habla inglesa (Madrid, 1998), vol. III, pp. 277-90, suggests that Margaret’s interest in being compared with the English queen Mary Tudor, as an example of a virtuous wife of the House of Austria, may have influenced her desire to combine the ‘Pond’ and the ‘Pilgrim’ in the same jewel setting, just as Mary had worn the other equally significant jewel for the Spanish crown, with the ‘Great’ diamond and the ‘Orphan’ pearl.

29 Edward L. Goldberg, ‘Artistic Relations between the Medici and the Spanish Courts, 1587–1621: Part I’, Burlington Magazine 138 (1996), p. 108, n. 11; and Jordan, ‘Imagen de una reina a principios del Barroco’, p. 179, n. 541.

30 Oil on canvas, 188×112 cm. Inscribed in the upper right corner: ‘MARGARETA ARCHIDUCIA / REGINA HISPANIAE’. According to Kusche, Juan Pantoja de la Cruz y sus seguidores, p. 107, its provenance from the Bavarian collection is significant enough to suggest that it was the portrait sent to the Queen’s mother to inform her that she was pregnant.

31 I owe the location of its current place in a private Spanish collection to Dr Natalia Horcajo.

32 ‘vestido con cota blanca prensada y jubón blanco, quajado de trençillas y ropa de terçiopelo liso negro con botones de diamantes y una mano sobre un bufete y en la otra un lienço’, quoted in Ricardo de Aguirre, ‘Documentos relativos a la pintura en España, Juan Pantoja de la Cruz, pintor de cámara’, Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursionistas 30 (1922), p. 18; and Fernando Marías, ‘Juan Pantoja de la Cruz: El arte cortesano de la imagen y las devociones femeninas’, in La mujer en el arte español. VIII Jornadas de Arte (Madrid, 1997), p. 105.

33 Very similar is the anonymous portrait of Margaret of Austria, a copy by Velázquez, from the Palace of Versailles, Inv. MV3337, with a column at her side, which was an emblematic element of the official portrait painting of the Spanish Habsburgs.

34 Marías, ‘Juan Pantoja de la Cruz’, pp. 111-12.

35 Within this repertoire ‘a lo divino’, we should also include a Saint Margaret with the features of Queen Margaret of Austria that appears in the accounts of Bartolomé González, in a writ of discharge dated 30 August 1618, cited in José Moreno Villa and Francisco Javier Sánchez Cantón, ‘Noventa y siete retratos de la familia de Felipe III por Bartolomé González’, Archivo Español de Arte y Arqueología 38 (1937), pp. 127-157, p. 145, n. 37, which was commissioned by her daughter Anne, already queen of France, as a clear homage to her deceased mother, while invoking the saint as patron of midwives.

36 Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Inv. 2516: oil on canvas, 152×115 cm. María Kusche, Juan Pantoja de la Cruz (Bonn, 1964), pp. 90ff., n. 56; Heinz and Schütz, Porträtgalerie zur geschichte Österreichs, p. 132, n. 103; and Marías, ‘Juan Pantoja de la Cruz’, p. 114.

37 Kusche, Juan Pantoja de la Cruz y sus seguidores, p. 118. Guzmán, Reyna católica, fol. 132r., ‘habla de la gran devoción de Margarita por la Anunciación: con referencias tanto en Valladolid: “Tenia la Reyna nuestra señora entre sus devociones esta, dar de comer por su mano a nueve mujeres pobres el día de la Anunciación de Nuestra Señora, en reverencia de sus nueve fiestas; y esta costumbre guardó siempre … ”; como en Madrid, cuando se refiere, fol. 187v., a cómo participaba el día de la Anunciación en la misa de la iglesia de San Felipe el Real de Madrid’. ([Guzmán] ‘speaks of Margaret’s great devotion to the Annunciation, with references both in Valladolid: “Among her devotions was that of giving food by her hand to nine poor women on the day of the Annunciation of Our Lady, in reverence of her nine feasts; and this custom she always kept … ”; and in Madrid, when he refers, fol. 187v., to how she participated on the day of the Annunciation in the mass in the church of San Felipe el Real in Madrid’).

38 Aguirre, ‘Documentos relativos a la pintura en España’, p. 18: Valladolid, 25 November 1604: ‘dos retratos enteros del rey y la reyna … el rey armado y calças blancas con un bastón en la mano, y su Magestad con saya entera blanca, gorra y joyas y bufete’, ordenado por la reina para Antonio de Toledo, el conde de Alba de Liste, a quien los entregó en Valladolid’.

39 Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, Inv. 417: oil on canvas, 204.8×101.5 cm. The signature says it was done in Valladolid in 1605: ‘Jun. Pantoja de la + faciebat Vall … 1605’. Kusche, Juan Pantoja de la Cruz y sus seguidores, p. 117. On the Queen’s portrait: Kusche, Juan Pantoja de la Cruz y sus seguidores, p. 116.

40 Jordan, ‘Imagen de una reina a principios del Barroco’, p. 182; and Muller, Joyas en España, p. 83. Empress Maria had also given her another two-headed eagle ‘con muchas piedras ricas’ (‘with many rich stones’), valued at 34,000 ducats, when Margaret arrived in Madrid on 11 November 1599. According to Cabrera de Córdoba, Relaciones de las Cosas Sucedidas, pp. 45-6: ‘era la mejor que la Emperatriz había tenido, ni le quedaba otra, y la reina tuvo el detalle de ponérsela cuando fue a visitarles la emperatriz al día siguiente a la Casa de Campo, colgada de una sarta de perlas muy rica al cuello’. (It was the best the Empress had ever had, nor did she have any other left, and the Queen had the courtesy to wear it when the Empress visited them the following day at the Casa de Campo, hanging it from a string of very rich pearls around her neck).

41 Aguirre, ‘Documentos relativos a la pintura en España’, p. 272: in the account comes next: ‘two galguillos [greyhounds], which they brought from Flanders’, and which are led by the dwarves Bonami and Don Antonio.

42 The portrait of Ana Mauricia depicted her at the age of four, ‘de encarnado con saya entera y manga de punta con que fue madrina del Príncipe Felipe [IV]’ (in the colour incarnate with full saya and pointed sleeves with which she was godmother to Prince Philip), in Aguirre, ‘Documentos relativos a la pintura en España’, p. 271. The King also gave Lord Howard, before his departure for England, ‘two small portraits in two copper plates, one of his royal Persona and the other of the Queen, which they put in a diamond box’, in Aguirre, ‘Documentos relativos a la pintura en España’, p. 271.

43 The signature of the Philip III’s portrait: ‘Ju Pantoja de la + Valladolit Regiae Majstatis Philip … Pictor faciebat 1605’. Aguirre, ‘Documentos relativos a la pintura en España’, p. 273: ‘Deve más el Rey Nuestro Señor treynta y cinco días questube en Lerma y Burgos, por su mandado, acabar los retratos que se llevaron a Yngalatera, que fue desde 10 de julio de 605 asta 14 de agosto del mismo año y en Lerma pagué 40 reales de posada, porque no se me dio’ (The King our Lord has given me thirty-five days in Lerma and Burgos, by his command, to finish the portraits that were taken to England, which was from 10 July 1605 to 14 August of the same year, and in Lerma I paid 40 reals for lodging, because it was not given to me). Kusche, Juan Pantoja de la Cruz y sus seguidores, pp. 120-23.

44 Aguirre, ‘Documentos relativos a la pintura en España’, p. 271.

45 Kusche, Juan Pantoja de la Cruz, p. 244. All were elements very much in keeping with the newly signed peace.

46 Narciso Alonso Cortés, ‘Relación del bautismo de Felipe IV’, Boletín de la Sociedad Castellana de Excursiones 7 (1915), p. 273; and Muller, Joyas en España, pp. 58-59. See footnotes 19 and 29.

47 Guzmán, Reyna católica, fol. 129r., shows her great fondness for ‘holy books’. In the inventory of her possessions of 1612, ratified in 1621 on the death of the King, we find many devotional books in her library. Cordula van Wyhe, ‘Piedad, representación y poder: la construcción del cuerpo ideal de la soberana en los primeros retratos de Isabel Clara Eugenia (1586–1603)’, in Van Wyhe (ed.), Isabel Clara Eugenia, p. 122, interprets this presence of the Virgin in the portraits of the King and Queen as an invitation to the recipients — the English royal couple — to support the Catholic cause, an initiative that the Treaty of London failed to address.

48 Guzmán, Reyna católica, fol. 173r.

49 Carlos Fernández de Córdoba, who died in 1931, donated through his wife, Ángeles Medina y Garvey, the most significant pieces of his collection, which came from the house of his parents, the duke and duchess of Medinaceli. Kusche, Juan Pantoja de la Cruz, p. 66, n. 10; Kusche, Juan Pantoja de la Cruz y sus seguidores, pp. 126-27; and Leticia Ruiz Gómez, El Greco y la pintura española del Renacimiento. Guía (Madrid, 2001), p. 176.

50 Museo Nacional del Prado, Inv. P002562, oil on canvas, 204×122 cm.

51 Museo Nacional del Prado, Inv. P002563, oil on canvas, 204×122 cm.

52 Oil on canvas, 108.7×84.3 cm. The attribution was confirmed by Maria Kusche. According to the Caylus Gallery, it became apparent during its restoration that this painting may have been a full-length portrait. An identical one in this format is mentioned in the ‘Pieza que Cae sobre la Botica’ in the Inventario del Alcázar de Madrid of 1700: ‘dressed in white with her hand on her chest’, in Fernández Bayton, Inventarios reales, p. 97, n. 788. Another copy identical to the Caylus one, attributed to Pantoja and his workshop, was sold at Christie’s in Paris, 23 June 2009, sale 5569, lot 12, oil on canvas, 100×73 cm.

53 See footnote 18.

54 Patrimonio Nacional, Inv. 00652190: Oil on canvas, 201×101 cm; Art Institute of Chicago, Inv. 1941.975: Oil on canvas, 210,5 × 109 cm.

55 Museo Nacional del Prado, P001032: Oil on canvas, 112×97 cm. Signed: ‘Jues Pantoja de la + Regiae Majestatis / Philippi 3 Camerarius Pictor /Faciebat. Madriti 1607’. Jesús Urrea, ‘Doña Margarita de Austria de Juan Pantoja de la Cruz’, in Jesús Urrea (ed.), Pintores del reinado de Felipe III (cat. exp. Caja Cantabria Obra Social, Santander, 1993) (Madrid, 1993), pp. 44-45; and Kusche, Juan Pantoja de la Cruz y sus seguidores, pp.130-31.

56 ‘una çinturilla de diamantes y botonçillos redondos de diamantes y cruz de diamantes y un relogito y un rosario de diamantes en el braço … en una mano un lienço y la derecha sobre una silla’, in Aguirre, ‘Documentos relativos a la pintura en España’, p. 19: From this description it can be deduced that the painting has been cut off at the bottom, as the handkerchief has disappeared.

57 In the miniature ‘on a quarto sheet of paper’ (‘en una chapa de quartilla de papel’) made by Pantoja in December 1603 to send to the King, when he was in the kingdom of Valencia, the Queen was dressed in black to mourn her daughter Maria and her aunt, Empress Maria, who both died in February of that year. Aguirre, ‘Documentos relativos a la pintura en España’, p. 18; and Marías, ‘Juan Pantoja de la Cruz’, p. 104. See also José Luis Colomer, ‘Vestir de negro’, in Colomer and Descalzo (eds), Vestir a la española, pp. 77-111.

58 Moreno Villa and Sánchez Cantón, ‘Noventa y siete retratos de la familia de Felipe III’, p. 139, n. 9 (the Queen) and 8 (the King). Portraits of their children were also made, but these were in contrast dressed in white, nos 10-15.

59 Patrimonio Nacional, Inv. 00621949 and 00621948, respectively: oil on canvas, 122×92 cm. They may be the ones that Luis Muñoz, Vida de la venerable M. Mariana de S. Ioseph Fundadora de la Recolección de las Monjas Agustinas, Priora del Real Convento de la Encarnación (Madrid, 1645), p. 232, mentions when writing about the sacristy of the Encarnación, as ‘portraits of the founder king and queen’. A pair of full-length portraits dressed in black also appears in the last will and testament of Bartolomé González, cited in Peter Cherry, ‘Nuevos datos sobre Bartolomé González’, Archivo Español de Arte 261 (1993), p. 8, doc. 2 (nos 54-55).

60 Magdalena de Lapuerta, Los pintores de la Corte de Felipe III. La Casa Real de El Pardo (Madrid, 2002), pp. 476-77, doc. 14. Pantoja worked on it until his death on 26 October 1608, and Bartolomé González was responsible for its completion, handing it over in 1612.

61 Lapuerta, Los pintores de la Corte de Felipe III, pp. 425-27.

62 Aguirre, ‘Documentos relativos a la pintura en España’, 31, p. 202; Lapuerta, Los pintores de la Corte de Felipe III, p. 427, note 256: ‘ … bestida de rasso blanco, prenssado con joias de diamantes, la una mano en la ssilla y en la otra un abanico, con cortina carmesí’ (‘ … dressed in white satin, adorned with diamond jewels, one hand on the chair and in the other a fan, with a crimson curtain’). First identified by Lapuerta, Los pintores de la Corte de Felipe III, p. 427. On this painting see Francisco Javier Sánchez Cantón, Catálogo de las pinturas del Instituto de Valencia de Don Juan (Madrid, 1923), pp. 29-31, n. 9; Kusche, Juan Pantoja de la Cruz, pp. 77, 152 and 153, n. 21; and Marías, ‘Juan Pantoja de la Cruz’, pp. 103-16.

63 Cabrera de Córdoba, Relaciones de las Cosas Sucedidas, pp. 325-26. Philip III was also dressed in ‘blanco bordado, capote morado bordado de plata con pieças de diamantes, forrado en lobos cervales’ (white embroidered, purple cloak embroidered in silver with diamonds, lined in serval wolves).

64 Oil on canvas, 103×124 cm. Kusche, Juan Pantoja de la Cruz y sus seguidores, p. 130; and Leticia Ruiz Gómez, ‘Retrato de Margarita de Austria’, en Donación de Plácido Arango Arias al Museo de Bellas Artes de Asturias (Oviedo, 2018), pp. 48-49.

65 Kusche, Juan Pantoja de la Cruz y sus seguidores, p. 128. An identical full-length version is recorded in the ‘Quinta pieça del dicho passadiço’ in the Inventario del Alcázar de Madrid of 1636: ‘de cuerpo entero vestida de blanco con las joyas ricas y cortina carmesí’ (‘a full-length dressed in white with rich jewellery and crimson drapery’), accompanied by another full-length version of the King in armour and wearing white tights, also with crimson drapery, transcribed by Martínez Leiva and Rodríguez Rebollo, Quadros y otras cosas tiene Su Magestad Felipe IV, p. 77, n. 154 and 152.

66 Museo Nacional del Prado, P000716: oil on canvas, 116×100 cm. Signed: ‘Barme. Goncalez f./1609’. Jesús Urrea, ‘Doña Margarita de Austria de Bartolomé González’, in Urrea (ed.), Pintores del reinado de Felipe III, pp. 76-77, n. 20; and Kusche, Juan Pantoja de la Cruz y sus seguidores, pp. 270-71.

67 ‘saya de ormesí plateado bordado de seda parda con botones de diamantes y banda de diamantes, con mangas pajizas bordadas de plata y cortinas de tela carmesí’. Moreno Villa and Sánchez Cantón, ‘Noventa y siete retratos de la familia de Felipe III’, p. 141, n. 16. The portrait is inventoried in the ‘Galería de afuera’ of the Alcázar of Madrid, according to the Relación de las pinturas que quedan en la Guardajoyas que no están entregadas a don Joan Pacheco. 1621: in AGP, Sección Administrativa, Leg. 902: ‘Otro lienço de pinzel al olio con el retrato de la reina Doña Margarita nra. Sra. de medio cuerpo arriva con saya plateada y la mano derecha puesta a la cabeçaça de Vaylan’ (‘Another oil painting with the portrait of Queen Margaret Our Lady, half-length […] with a silver saya and the right hand placed at the head of Vaylan [sic]’).

68 The engraver Michel Lasne also copied the model with the dog Baylan by Bartolomé; he also produced the slightly less than half-length portrait of the Queen that is used to illustrate Diego de Guzmán’s biography: 1617. It bears the inscription: ‘D. Margarita de Austria. Aetatis suae Ann XXVI’ (signed ‘M. Asinius’).

69 Moreno Villa and Sánchez Cantón, ‘Noventa y siete retratos de la familia de Felipe III’, p. 148, nos 56 and 57. The model corresponds to the one described in a miniature (naipe) that the Queen commissioned from Pantoja and which he delivered to her in January 1604 during the King’s absence on a journey to the Cortes in Valencia, and Margaret was in Madrid, with her young daughter Ana, living in the Descalzas Reales (Aguirre, ‘Documentos relativos a la pintura en España’, p. 18). There are also several three-quarter versions of this model with ‘black bohemian’ lined with ermine, attributed to Pantoja, such as those in the Alcázar of Segovia, one in the Aumont Gallery in California, or one sold at Sotheby’s, New York, 24 January 2008, lot 266, p. 171.

70 These two portraits were given to the prioress of the Monastery of the Encarnación, Sister Mariana de San José, on 17 February 1616, by the guardajoyas of the King, Hernando de Espejo, in AGP, Sección Administrativa, Leg. 902, Exp. 14. An exact full-length portrait like that in the Encarnación is mentioned in the ‘Pieça del quarto vaxo antes de la del despacho’ in the Inventario del Alcázar de Madrid of 1636, in Martínez Leiva and Rodríguez Rebollo, Quadros y otras cosas tiene Su Magestad Felipe IV, p. 101, n. 813, with the only difference that the chest has ‘two strings of pearls and a rich jewel’.

71 Patrimonio Nacional, Inv. 00621556: oil on canvas, 206×109 cm; Kusche, Juan Pantoja de la Cruz y sus seguidores, pp. 271-72 and 309-10; Patrimonio Nacional, Inv. 00621554: oil on canvas, 206×109 cm.

72 Oil on canvas, 210×130 cm. Sánchez Cantón, Catálogo de las pinturas del Instituto, p. 32, n. 10. Jordan, 2005, pp. 220-23; while Kusche, Juan Pantoja de la Cruz y sus seguidores, p. 272, considers it to be by Bartolomé González, although it is not documented.

73 Patrimonio Nacional, Inv. 00620700: oil on canvas, 205×108,5 cm.

74 Philip III shows a special appreciation for white for special ceremonies, such as for the birth of his heir Prince Philip (IV) in 1605, as indicated by Tomé Pinheiro da Veiga, Fastiginia o Fastos Geniales, trans. from Portuguese by Narciso Alonso Cortes (Valladolid, 1973), p. 67; or at the swearing-in ceremony of the Prince in the church of San Jerónimo in Madrid, on 13 January 1608, in which Cabrera de Córdoba, Relaciones de las Cosas Sucedidas, pp. 325-26, indicates that ‘their Majesties were dressed in white’.

75 Moreno Villa and Sánchez Cantón, ‘Noventa y siete retratos de la familia de Felipe III’, p. 147, n. 52 and 53; and Kusche, Juan Pantoja de la Cruz y sus seguidores, pp. 306-07. They appear in the inventory of the Alcázar of Madrid in 1636, specifically, in the ‘Galería de la Reina Nuestra Señor en el quarto alto’, in Martínez Leiva and Rodríguez Rebollo, Quadros y otras cosas tiene Su Magestad Felipe IV, p. 125, n. 1207-08.

76 Museo Nacional del Prado, P002918: oil on canvas, 160×109 cm.

77 In the next generation, Queen Mariana of Austria, as regent for her son Charles II, would also appear seated in portraits.

78 Moreno Villa and Sánchez Cantón, ‘Noventa y siete retratos de la familia de Felipe III’, p. 154, n. 79-88. Cristóbal Gómez de Sandoval-Rojas y de la Cerda, first duke of Uceda (1581–1624), succeeded his father, the duke of Lerma, as Philip III’s valido from 1618; the duchess was Mariana de Padilla y Acuña, countess of Buendía and Santa Gadea.

79 Patrimonio Nacional, Inv. 10072953 and 10072954: oil on canvas, 204,5×129 cm.; Carmen García-Frías Checa, ‘Retratos de Philip III y Margarita de Austria de Bartolomé González’, in Carmen García-Frías Checa and Javier Jordán de Urríes de la Colina, El retrato en las colecciones reales de Patrimonio Nacional. De Juan de Flandes a Antonio López (cat. exp., Palacio Real de Madrid, diciembre 2014–mayo 2015) (Madrid, 2014), pp. 181-86; Kusche, Juan Pantoja de la Cruz y sus seguidores, pp. 318-19. See also Moreno Villa and Sánchez Cantón, ‘Noventa y siete retratos de la familia de Felipe III’, p. 154, n. 79-80.

80 AGP, Sección Administrativa, Leg. 40, Exp. 50: Cuenta de D. Mariano Carderera por Retratos de los Reyes, 7 July 1881.

81 Moreno Villa and Sánchez Cantón, ‘Noventa y siete retratos de la familia de Felipe III’, p. 154, n. 80.

82 Martinez Leiva and Rodríguez Rebollo, Quadros y otras cosas tiene Su Magestad Felipe IV, p. 87, n. 460-65; Kusche, Juan Pantoja de la Cruz y sus seguidores, p. 361; and Leticia Ruiz Gómez, ‘Isabel de Bórbon, Felipe (IV), príncipe de Asturias, y María de Austria’, in García-Frías Checa and Jordán de Urríes de la Colina, El retrato en las colecciones reales de Patrimonio Nacional, pp. 197-204.

83 Carmen García-Frías Checa, ‘Las galerías de retratos de las Descalzas Reales y de la Encarnación: un signo de pertenencia a la Casa de Austria’, in Fernando Checa (ed.), La otra corte. Mujeres de la Casa de Austria en los Monasterios Real de las Descalzas y Encarnación (exhibition catalogue) (Madrid, 2019), pp. 212-27.

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Carmen García-Frías Checa

Carmen García-Frías Checa

Carmen García-Frías has a Degree in Art History from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (1986). From 1991 she was a curator at the Monastery of El Escorial and the Convent of Santa Clara de Tordesillas until 2002, when she took up her current position as curator of Ancient Paintings at Patrimonio Nacional. García-Frías Checa has published several essays on the theme of royal portraiture: ‘La retratística de la Casa de Austria en el Monasterio de El Escorial’, in El Monasterio de El Escorial y la pintura (2001); ‘Imágenes para la glorificación del poder político. La fortuna del retrato en armadura en los palacios de la Casa de Austria española’, in the exhibition catalogue El Arte del poder (Museo Nacional del Prado, 2010); ‘El retrato en las colecciones reales de Patrimonio Nacional: De la Casa de Trastámara a la Casa de Austria’, in El retrato en las colecciones reales. De Juan de Flandes a Antonio López (2014); and ‘Las galerías de retratos de las Descalzas Reales y de la Encarnación: un signo de pertenencia a la Casa de Austria’, in La otra corte. Mujeres de la Casa de Austria en los Monasterios Real de las Descalzas y Encarnación (2019).