Born in El Escorial in 1609, don Fernando was the son of Philip III and Margarita de Austria, and thus Philip IV´s brother. As a result, he held very high posts. In 1619, he was appointed cardinal and [+]
Mariana of Austria (1634-1696) was the daughter of the Emperor Ferdinand III and María of Hungary. It was intended that she marry her cousin, Prince Baltasar Carlos, but following his death she [+]
This image can be identified as that of a king and as a portrait of Philip IV on the basis of others of the monarch. In fact, nothing about the clothes or the sitter`s actions suggests his royal statu [+]
In 1624, soon after Velázquez`s arrival at court, the political writer Almansa noted that the equestrian order was and is the backbone of republics. This notion was shared by the Spanish monarc [+]
Of the equestrian portraits painted for the Hall of Realms, this is the only one with a declaration of authorship. The lower left corner has been a customary place throughout the history of painting f [+]
This was one of the paintings decorating the Hall of Realms at Madrid´s Buen Retiro Palace, where various discourses (territorial, mythological, military, and so on) combined to make up the decoration [+]
This painting was intended to hang to the right of the Equestrian Portrait of Philip IV (P01178) and it depicts that monarch´s first wife, Elizabeth of Bourbon (1602-1644), whom he married in 1615. Th [+]
Margarita of Austria (1651-1673) was the daughter of Philip IV and Mariana of Austria. When Mazo painted her she was betrothed to the Emperor Leopold of Austria, whom she married in 1666. In this port [+]
This is one of Velázquez`s largest paintings and among those in which he made most effort to create a complex and credible composition that would convey a sense of life and reality while enclos [+]
A sculptor is shown modeling (possibly in wax) a head of Philip IV, making this one of the most important 17th-century Spanish portraits of an artist. Besides its impeccable quality, this work is a ve [+]
Following his appointment as painter to the King in 1623, Velázquez`s principal task was that of portraying the monarch and his circle. In order to do so he primarily made use of two different [+]
Along with Philip IV and Velázquez, the third name intimately associated with the Buen Retiro Palace is Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares (1587-1645). When Philip IV took the thro [+]
The inscription at the lower left serves to date this portrait between October 1635 and the same month the following year. At that time, following his first Italian visit and his permanent and conscie [+]
We see King Philip IV of Spain (r. 1621-1665) when he was around twenty years old in an austere image filled with references to his status and responsibilities and to the reformist intentions with whi [+]
Between 1635 and 1637, important additions were made to the Torre de la Parada, the king´s hunting pavilion situated in the woodlands surrounding the royal palace of El Pardo, on the outskirts of Madr [+]
Regardless of the concrete origin of the equestrian portraits for the Hall of Realms, the location for which each was painted, or their sequence, they clearly present a series of formal and iconograph [+]