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

…; from Charles Howard Hodges (1764-1837), Amsterdam, with SK-A-507, 508 and 509, 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-510

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 1600,²²F.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, fig. 2048/1. 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 Madrid³³B. 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. 199-201, no. PA15. and in the British Royal Collection Trust.⁴⁴B. 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. 279-81, no. PB2, and C. White, The later Flemish Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, London 2007, pp. 160-64, no. 53. 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),⁵⁵K. Hearn (ed.), Dynasties: Painting in Tudor and Jacobean England 1530-1630, exh. cat. London (Tate Gallery) 1995-96, no. 124. but there is little doubt that Pourbus was (at least to a degree) responsible, as both White⁶⁶B. 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. 279-81, no. PB2, and C. White, The later Flemish Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, London 2007, pp. 160-64, no. 53. and Ducos⁷⁷B. 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. 199-201, no. PA15. 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.⁸⁸Oil on oak, 60 x 42 cm, H. Pauwels, Musée Groeninge: Catalogue, coll. cat. Bruges (Groeninge Museum) 1963, p. 60; ex-Peltzer sale, Amsterdam (Muller), 26-27 May 1914, no. 29. 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.⁹⁹White in C. White, The later Flemish Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, London 2007, p. 160 under no. 53. 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. Duerloo¹⁰¹⁰L. Duerloo, Dynasty and Piety: Archduke Albert (1598-1621) and Habsburg Political Culture in an Age of Religious Wars, Farnham 2012, p. 145. 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.¹¹¹¹L. Duerloo, Dynasty and Piety: Archduke Albert (1598-1621) and Habsburg Political Culture in an Age of Religious Wars, Farnham 2012, pp. 58-59, 119, 406-07. In only one respect could she be said to have failed: she did not provide an heir despite several rumours of pregnancy.¹²¹²L. Duerloo, Dynasty and Piety: Archduke Albert (1598-1621) and Habsburg Political Culture in an Age of Religious Wars, Farnham 2012, pp. 73-75. 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

Zandvliet in K. Zandvliet et al., Maurits, Prins van Oranje, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2000-01, no. 95

1832, p. 88, no. 411 (unknown, as portraying Isabella Clara Eugenia); 1880, p. 433, no. 416 (unknown Flemish); 1885, p. 75, no. 516; 1903, p. 31, no. 356 (Flemish School); 1934, p. 27, no. 356 (Flemish School early 17th century); 1976, p. 692, no. A 510 (Southern Netherlandish School c. 1600)

G. Martin, 2022, 'workshop of Frans (II) Pourbus, Portrait of Archduchess Isabella Clara Eugenia (1566-1633), Infanta of Spain, c. 1600', in Flemish Paintings in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6635