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Luca Giordano (1634-1705) made an equestrian portrait of Charles II for the Hall of Mirrors at Madrid’s Alcázar palace to emphasize the dynastic continuum in which Charles II constituted the latest link in a chain that had begun with Titian’s portrait of Charles V: Charles V at Mühlberg. The loss of Titian’s work in the fire that ravaged the Alcázar in 1734 makes it impossible t
Evoking the model of the great equestrian portraits painted for the Spanish Habsburgs by Titian, Rubens and Velázquez, Giordano offers his own idealised and triumphal depiction of Maria Anna of Neuburg. The Queen is shown in a landscape that recalls the Bay of Naples, both accompanied by allegorical figures. It is not clear if these canvases were the bases for large-scale portraits of the m
