Portrait of Archduke Albert of Austria (1559-1621)

…; from Charles Howard Hodges (1764-1837), Amsterdam, with SK-A-507, 508 and 510, fl. 28, to the museum, 1829; on loan to the Noordbrabants Museum,’s-Hertogenbosch, since 2003¹¹NHA, ARS, Kop, inv. 36, pp. 253-255 (28 April 1829); NHA, ARS, Kop, inv. 36, p. 258 (8 July 1829).

ObjectNumber: SK-A-509

Albert (1559-1621), Archduke of Austria, wears the breastplate and pauldrons of a parade garniture, the collar and jewel of the Order of the Golden Fleece and the knotted, red armband of the captain general of the army of Flanders. Unlike in the case of the portrait of Philip III (1578-1621), King of Spain (SK-A-507), the armour is no longer extant although similar suits do exist.²²Cf. the archduke’s suit of parade armour in the Brussels Koninklijk Museum voor Kunst en Geschiedenis, exh. cat. El arte en la Corte de los Archiduques Alberto de Austria e Isabel Clara Eugenia (1598-1633): Un reino imaginado, exh. cat. Madrid (Palacio Real) 1999-2000, pp. 204-05, no. 49.

There can be no doubt as to the identity of the sitter in the present portrait, as the face conforms with other portrayals of the archduke, in particular with the engraved portrait by Johannes Wierix (1549-c. 1620) of 1600.³³F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450-1700, Amsterdam/Roosendaal 1948-, LXVII, part IX, 2004, pp. 192-93 and p. 194, figs. 2047/1, 2048/2.

The present painting has long been considered the pendant to the portrait of the sitter’s wife, Isabella Clara Eugenia (1566-1633), Infanta of Spain (SK-A-510). As husband and wife and joint sovereigns of the Netherlands, they were depicted together, and, in this case, the supports are of the same material. But unlike the pendant portraits in Bruges⁴⁴Oil on oak, 60 x 42 cm, D. de Vos, Groeningemuseum Brügge: Die vollständige Sammlung, exh. cat. Bruges (Groeningemuseum) 1983, p. 60; ex-Peltzer sale, Amsterdam (Muller), 26-27 May 1914, no. 29. for instance, the proportions of the sitters relative to each other and to their respective supports differ and the impact of the present image is weaker. It is possible therefore the Rijksmuseum portraits were not executed as pendants (although the same size) but rather that they were subsequently assembled as a pair.

The portrayal of the face is close to that devised by Frans Pourbus II (1569-1622) in the full-length in Madrid,⁵⁵B. Ducos, Frans Pourbus Le Jeune (1569-1622): Le portrait d’apparat à l’aube du Grand Siècle entre Habsbourg, Médicis et Bourbons, Dijon 2011, pp. 198-99, no. PA15. which is most likely the artist’s prime original executed, along with the pendant of the archduchess, between around 5 September 1599, when the couple made their entry into Brussels, and the artist’s departure for Mantua in the summer of the following year. Comparable is the bust-length portrait of the infanta in Estonia which Ducos has described provisionally as a simplified copy of Pourbus’s original likely to have been made ‘vers 1600’.⁶⁶B. Ducos, Frans Pourbus Le Jeune (1569-1622): Le portrait d’apparat à l’aube du Grand Siècle entre Habsbourg, Médicis et Bourbons, Dijon 2011, pp. 294-95, no. PC7. He places other copies, or derivations, after the original full-lengths in Madrid between 1600 and 1615.⁷⁷B. Ducos, Frans Pourbus Le Jeune (1569-1622): Le portrait d’apparat à l’aube du Grand Siècle entre Habsbourg, Médicis et Bourbons, Dijon 2011, p. 294, no. PC6; p. 297, nos. PC13-14; p. 299, no. PC18; and pp. 301-02, nos. PC26-27. The Rijksmuseum portrait is most likely the product of the same putative, Brussels workshop that produced the portraits of King Philip III ((SK-A-507) and his consort (SK-A-508), and related pendants, where in her case a prototype deriving from Pourbus was employed. However, the armour is executed in a manner very similar to that in the portrait of Philip III and in that of the version of Albert in Bruges where the same prototype for the face was used.

As son of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II (1527-1576) and co-sovereign of the Spanish Netherlands, the sitter has been described as ‘the Most serene, Highborn Prince and Lord, Lord Albert, Archduke of Austria, Duke of Burgundy, Lothier, Brabant, Styria, Carinthia, Limburg, Luxembourg, Guelders and Württemberg …’.⁸⁸L. Duerloo, Dynasty and Piety: Archduke Albert (1598-1621) and Habsburg Political Culture in an Age of Religious Wars, Farnham 2012, p. 1; noteworthy is, however, Duerloo’s statement (p. 60) that in the Act of Cession of 1598 the king of Spain reserved the title of the duke of Burgundy for himself and his heirs. He was appointed captain general of the army of Flanders in 1595 (on his prior appointment as governor general) and appointed as a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece in 1599.

The archduke, brought up at the court of King Philip II (1527-1598), had early been destined for the church. He resigned his archiepiscopal see of Toledo and returned his cardinal’s hat after having been chosen to marry Philip II’s daughter, Isabella Clara Eugenia; the marriage took place by procuration in Ferrara in 1598 and in fact in Valencia on 18 April 1599. The union proved sterile; as a result, at the archduke’s death in 1621 sovereignty over the Netherlands reverted to the king of Spain.

Albeit that the most significant act of his reign was the signing of the Twelve Years Truce with the United Provinces in 1609, the archduke had been moderately successful as captain general; he saw active engagement and was successful in the tilting yard.⁹⁹L. Duerloo, Dynasty and Piety: Archduke Albert (1598-1621) and Habsburg Political Culture in an Age of Religious Wars, Farnham 2012, pp. 47, 120. But his military capacities came to be questioned during the long siege of Ostend (1601-04), the direction of which he passed to Ambrogio Spinola (1569-1630), who was given control of the army of Flanders after he had brought the siege to a triumphant conclusion.¹⁰¹⁰L. Duerloo, Dynasty and Piety: Archduke Albert (1598-1621) and Habsburg Political Culture in an Age of Religious Wars, Farnham 2012, pp. 88-89. It is perhaps noteworthy that in the full-length portrait in Madrid by Pourbus, the archduke is depicted as an active commander, while in the present picture his military status is less conspicuous.

Gregory Martin, 2022

Zandvliet in K. Zandvliet et al., Maurits, Prins van Oranje, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2000-01, no. 94

1832, p. 88, no. 410 (unknown, as portraying Archduke Albert); 1880, p. 432, no. 515 (unknown Flemish); 1885, p. 25, no. 515; 1903, p. 31, no. 355; 1934, p. 27, no. 355 (Anonymous Flemish School early 17th century); 1976, p. 692, no. A 509 (Southern Netherlandish School c. 1600)

G. Martin, 2022, 'workshop of Frans (II) Pourbus, Portrait of Archduke Albert of Austria (1559-1621), c. 1600', in Flemish Paintings in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6834