Full title | Margaret of Austria |
---|---|
Artist | Probably by Pieter van Coninxloo |
Artist dates | active 1479; died 1513 |
Group | Diptych: Philip the Handsome and Margaret of Austria |
Date made | about 1493-5 |
Medium and support | Oil on wood |
Dimensions | 23.2 x 15.2 cm |
Inscription summary | Inscribed |
Acquisition credit | Salting Bequest, 1910 |
Inventory number | NG2613.2 |
Location | Not on display |
Collection | Main Collection |
This elegantly dressed young lady is Margaret of Austria, one of the most important female rulers of the Renaissance. The only daughter of Maximilian I, the Holy Roman Emperor, she was regent of the Netherlands from 1507 till her death in 1530. The half-blank coat of arms at the top of the arch indicates that she is unmarried, so the painting was evidently done before her first marriage to Juan, Prince of Asturias, in 1495.
After the death of her second husband in 1501, Margaret, still only 21, refused to marry again and eventually became the grande dame of European politics. She was also an avid collector, owning van Eyck’s Portrait of Giovanni(?) Arnolfini and his Wife (now also in the National Gallery) among many other paintings. She was a patron of art, literature and music, and her palace at Malines was packed with books, illuminated manuscripts, tapestries and even curiosities from the Americas, only recently explored by Europeans.
This elegantly dressed young lady is Margaret of Austria, one of the most important female rulers of the Renaissance. The only daughter of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor and Mary of Burgundy, she was regent of the Netherlands from 1507 to her death in 1530. The half-blank coat of arms at the top of the arch indicates that she is unmarried – the space would be filled by her husband’s arms – so the painting was evidently done before her first marriage to Juan, Prince of Asturias, in November 1495.
Margaret’s early life was largely spent on the European marriage market. She was born on 10 January 1480. Her mother was killed in a riding accident when she was two and she was brought up by her step-grandmother, Margaret of York, sister of Edward IV of England. She was betrothed at the age of three to the infant heir to the French throne, Charles, and was sent to be brought up at the French court.
In 1491 she was rejected by Charles, and she returned to the Netherlands in 1493. This painting must have been done after that date, though perhaps not long after: her clothes are very similar to those she wears in a portrait done when she was still in France (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). Although not much more than a child, she is in adult dress, as was traditional for royal children. Her cloth of gold dress has a fashionably square neck, trimmed with white fur, and she wears a black gorget, probably of velvet, underneath it. Her hair is scraped back under a headdress consisting of a layer of red fabric edged with gold, covered with a shoulder-length frontlet edged with gold embroidery.
As part of a double marriage uniting their family, the Hapsburgs, with the Spanish royal family, Margaret married Juan, son of Ferdinand and Isabella, at around the same time that her brother married their daughter Juana. Six months into marriage her husband died, and two months later she gave birth to her only child, a stillborn girl. Margaret’s next husband, the Duke of Savoy, also died young in 1504, after three years of marriage.
A slightly later portrait of Margaret by the same artist (now in the Royal Collection at Windsor) was sent to Henry VII by Philip in around 1505, when Henry was negotiating for her hand in marriage. But Margaret refused to marry again and returned to the Netherlands, becoming a grande dame of European politics. Because of the early death of her brother and the mental illness of her sister-in-law she acted not only as regent of the Netherlands but also as foster mother to their children.
She was an avid collector, owning Portrait of Giovanni(?) Arnolfini and his Wife and paintings from the Passion cycle of Juan de Flandes among many others. She was a patron of art, literature and music, and her palace at Malines was packed with books, illuminated manuscripts, tapestries and even curiosities from the Americas.
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Margaret of Austria
Diptych: Philip the Handsome and Margaret of Austria
This teenage brother and sister were the heirs of royalty and future rulers themselves. Philip the Handsome and Margaret of Austria were the children of the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian I, and Mary of Burgundy. Each is identified by an inscription in gold above their head and by the coats of arms at the top of the arch. Around them are further coats of arms representing the states and towns their parents governed.
Philip (1478–1506), who was later King of Castile, wears the livery collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece – a prestigious chivalric order – which he received in 1481. Margaret (1480–1530) was to become one of the effective rulers of her day as regent of the Netherlands. This small diptych (a painting made up of two parts) was easily portable, and must have been done in the early 1490s, when various projects for Philip’s and Margaret’s marriages were matters of intense concern.
These fair-haired teenagers were brother and sister, the heirs of royalty and future rulers themselves. Philip the Handsome and Margaret of Austria were the children of the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian I, and Mary of Burgundy. They are identified by inscriptions in gold around their heads and by the coats of arms on the shields at the tops of the panels. Around them are a further 17 smaller shields representing the states and towns their parents governed.
Philip (1478–1506) wears the livery collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece (a prestigious chivalric order, founded in the 1430s by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy) which he received in 1481; it also surrounds the top shield, which shows his father’s coat of arms on the left and his mother’s on the right. The coats of arms around him are those of Maximilian’s possessions in Austria, Slovenia, Switzerland, Italy, Germany and Alsace. Not all are accurate: the labels for Upper Austria and Schelklingen have been mixed up and the arms of Alsace are back to front.
Margaret (1480–1530), who was to become one of the effective rulers of her day as regent of the Netherlands, was clearly unmarried when this painting was done: half of the lozenge-shaped shield at the top of her panel is left blank, waiting for her husband’s arms. The shields around her display the arms of her mother’s Burgundian territories.
Collecting portraits of relatives and prospective spouses was an important feature of late medieval court culture: in an pre-photographic era this was often the only way people got to see who they were to marry before they met them. This small diptych was easily portable, and was probably done in the early 1490s, when portraits of Philip and Margaret would have been much in demand as various projects for their marriages were matters of intense concern. A very similar diptych, now at Schloss Ambras in Austria, gives their ages as 16 and 14, so can be dated to between 22 July 1494 and 10 January 1495. The National Gallery’s diptych was clearly painted at about the same time.
These paintings were once very colourful but are now obscured by layers of discoloured varnish. The brownish backgrounds seem originally to have been red, and Philip’s hat was also red; it has been overpainted in black. The blue areas in the coats of arms have darkened and the gilded details have lost their shine. They also had broad green frames, now missing.


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