Isabel Clara Eugenia
1591 - 1592. Oil on canvas.On display elsewhere
After the death of Philip II, the court went into mourning. This episode is duly reflected in this work portraying Philip II’s daughter, Isabella Clara Eugenia. She wears a black attire from which white satin sleeves with gold embroidery peep out. Her headdress is more complex, made with jasmine flowers and red ribbons with pearls. Some of the jewels are easily recognisable, such as the famous ruby, diamond and pearl which she inherited from Anna of Austria. She wears the same one in her portrait with Magdalena Ruiz (P000861), painted a decade earlier. Lastly, Isabella wears a gold chain from which hangs a figure of Saint Anthony of Padua. The attribution of this portrait is particularly complex. Sánchez Coello, Pantoja de la Cruz and Sofonisba Anguissola were the most likely painters of this work. Nevertheless, in view of the pictorial technique, none of these proposals was convincing. Given the age of the sitter, the face might depend on a model of around 1586, probably by Sánchez Coello. However, the execution of the figure, with its synthetic and superficial lines, suggests that another painter intervened in the making, different in turn from the one who painted the drapery and the floor, which are typical of the style and technique of Jan Kraek (also known as ‘Giovanni Caracca’). Kraek was a Dutchman who settled at the court of Turin and visited Spain in 1591 and 1592. (This work has been studied on the occasion of the exhibition ‘A Tale of Two Painters: Sofonisba Anguissola and Lavinia Fontana’, 2019).
