A fire in El Pardo Palace on March 13, 1604, destroyed the portraits in the Hall of Kings. These portraits had been painted by the finest artists of the time, including Titian, Antonio Moro, Alonso Sánchez Coello, and Sofonisba Anguisciola. Encased in stucco frames attached to the walls of the gallery, which had been organized by Sánchez Coello at the behest of Philip II, these portraits could not be saved from the fire as other paintings and objects in the palace were. Philip III, knowing the importance of this space as a symbolic site for the display of images of the monarchy, ordered the gallery reconstructed, charging Juan Pantoja de la Cruz, a disciple of Sánchez Coello, with this mission. Pantoja, in turn, used earlier models to recreate the portraits.

The likeness of the emperor presided over both galleries, the old and the new, and in the new gallery he was portrayed after the model created by Titian, a fact which shows that the official image of Charles V had been clearly defined, as had the role that the artists at court played in the transmission of this political image. In a society that did not prize originality as the modern world does, the use of copies and replicas was common, especially in the court workshops dedicated to the production of official portraits, and this copying in no way diminished the value of the art works. Pantoja’s signature on this canvas, indicating his role as translator, attests to the respect accorded the original, the personage who commissioned the copy, and the place in which it was to be hung.

Charles V (1500-1558) was the first-born son of Philip I of Castile (known as Philip the Fair) and Joanna I of Castile. As a very young man he inherited, on the maternal side, the kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, and Navarre and their Italian possessions, and on the paternal side, the dynastic territories of the Habsburgs. After his coronation as Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Clement VII in 1530 in Bologne, Charles won important victories against the Turks and the Protestants, and under his rule the empire expanded with the conquest of the territories of the New World.

Titian’s achievement was to define a model that reflected both the physical features and the military power of the emperor, and that fused the ruler’s individual identity with the concept of imperial dignity that he represented. Thus, the full-length portrait of Charles V with his sword, scepter, and plumed helmet became the official image of power and the point of departure for an iconography of great importance in the House of Austria. This iconography would reach its fullest definition in the mid-16th century with the equestrian portrait of Charles V at the Battle of Mühlberg and that of Philip II, both now in the Prado. Titian accentuated the classicism of the emperor’s figure by fusing, to a degree, his features with those of the Roman emperors.

He did this by using a beard, which helped disguise Charles’ protruding lower jaw, and armor, an essential element in the Austrian iconography. The medallion of the Virgin and Child and the ribbon of the Order of the Golden Fleece, a symbol of that medieval order of the House of Burgundy, even today the highest honor bestowed by the Spanish crown, express the emperor’s commitment to the defense of the Catholic faith in the vast territories of his empire. Pantoja created a portrait of fine technical facture, although somewhat lacking in expressiveness, which is in accord with the iconic and emblematic nature of the emperor’s image in the historical memory of the House of Austria (Ara Lázaro, J.: El Greco to Goya. Masterpieces from the Prado Museum, Museo de Arte de Ponce, 2012, pp. 120-121).