Portrait of Archduchess Isabella Clara Eugenia (1566-1633), Infanta of Spain

Entry

The sitter in this portrait is Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia (1566-1633), daughter of Philip II (1527-1598), King of Spain, and Elizabeth de Valois; her identity is established by comparison in this case (although there are numerous other candidates) with the engraved portrait by Johannes Wierix (1549-c. 1620) of 1600,² in which she wears the same costume. In that year, she was still the heir presumptive of the Spanish crown, and had resided in Brussels as co-sovereign of the Netherlands for a year following her marriage to Albert (1559-1621), Archduke of Austria, in 1598/1599.

The present bust-length portrait is one of a number of derivations – but exceptionally on copper – of the full-length portrayals of the archduchess in Madrid³ and in the British Royal Collection Trust.⁴ There has been hesitation as to whether to attribute the latter to Frans Pourbus II (1569-1622) or to the brothers Otto (1556-1629) and/or Gijsbrecht van Veen (1562-1628),⁵ but there is little doubt that Pourbus was (at least to a degree) responsible, as both White⁶ and Ducos⁷ have averred. Whether the face and costume here are by different hands is difficult to determine, but they may be. As in the case of the museum’s portraits of Albert (SK-A-509), Philip (SK-A-507) and Margaret (SK-A-508), there are slight differences from the other versions in the details of the costume; for instance the collar lacks the metal pieces attached to its base evident in the very similar rendering of Isabella at Bruges.⁸ As with these portraits it is worth considering whether the present portrait of Isabella is not the product of the same, putative Brussels workshop, charged with producing images of the reigning sovereigns, in which the prototype available would have derived from Pourbus. As argued under SK-A-509, it is possibly not an actual pendant to the portrait of the archduke Albert, although the supports are the same size.

The highly ornate costume has been described as ‘ornamental court dress’ derived from Spanish styles of the sixteenth century, but still worn at the Habsburg court well into the seventeenth.⁹ Whether it was brought with the archduchess from Spain or had recently been made in Brussels is not known, but most likely is the former. The open gown was probably made of silk; it was trimmed with gold cord and pearls. Duerloo¹⁰ has elucidated the symbolism of the various embroidered motifs: the interlocking rings and nearby violets stand for wedlock and fidelity; the fleur-de-lis referred to Isabella’s pretensions to the French crown through her mother, and likewise, the red rose pointed to her descent from the House of Lancaster and her claim to the English crown.

Like her husband, the archduchess was exemplary in her acts and works of piety. During their marriage, she endeared herself to their subjects, both peasantry by attending their marriage feasts and townsfolk by shooting the popinjay in Brussels in 1615; she also personally sought loyalty from discontented soldiery.¹¹ In only one respect could she be said to have failed: she did not provide an heir despite several rumours of pregnancy.¹² After the archduke’s death she assumed the governorship of her erstwhile domain; then she won the admiration of Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) who served her.

Gregory Martin, 2022