Panel Painting Portrait of Mary of Austria
Object number
LDSAL340
Artist/Designer/Maker
Maler, Hans - Artist
Production date
1520
Material
oil paint
vellum
wood
vellum
wood
Dimensions
height: 485mm
width: 360mm
height (frame): 565mm
width (frame): 445mm
width: 360mm
height (frame): 565mm
width (frame): 445mm
Location
Burlington House - (meeting room)
Inscriptions
Inscription content
• MARIA * REGINA •
• 1520 • • Anno Etatis • 14 •
• 1520 • • Anno Etatis • 14 •
References
Reference (free text)
Volume LXIII (2012)Von Stefan Krause'Die Portrats Von Hans Maler - Der Schwazer Silberrausch Der Fruhen Neuzeit Und Seine Akteure'('The Portraits of Hans Maler. The Schwarz Silver Rush of the Early Modern Period and its Actors')Copy of article filed in Object History File LDSAL 340
Oil on vellum portrait of Mary of Austria (1505- 1558), stretched over wooden panel and housed within original frame.
Mary of Austria (1505–58) was Queen Consort of Hungary in 1522–6 and Regent of the Burgundian Netherlands in 1531–56. Granddaughter of Archduke Maximilian I of Austria and Mary of Burgundy, she was born in Brussels to Joanna of Castile and Philip the Fair, and raised in The Netherlands at the court of her paternal aunt, Archduchess Margaret of Austria.
In the Society’s unique three-quarter-length portrait image of the fourteen year-old Mary of Austria, she is turned slightly to her right in the direction of her gaze, her hands folded and partly concealed by the wide sleeves of her garment.
The large hat that Mary wears in the Society’s portrait appears in another picture of her, now in Coburg. Tilted to the right and thus seen from a slightly different angle, it is recognisably the same, increasing the likelihood that both are representations of an actual hat. It could well be one of two known to have been given to her by her grandfather, the Emperor Maximilian I. In 1517, Maximilian ordered a velvet hat to be made for Mary, asking to see a drawing of the design and demanding to know the number and size of the rubies, diamonds and pearls used to decorate it. Anna of Hungary was to be provided with something similar. In addition to this bespoke hat, Maximilian also gave Mary a second-hand one that had belonged to his late wife, Bianca Maria Sforza.
The portrait painting has been attributed to the German painter Hans Maler (c 1480–c 1526/9) on stylistic and historical grounds. The Society’s picture has several of the characteristics associated with Maler’s portraiture: the graduated background, the inclined pose of the sitter and diagonality of the composition, the ornamental quality of the jewellery and the costume, the boldness of the drawing, the soft modelling of the facial features and the luminous, rosy flesh tones. First attributed to Maler by Gustav Glück in 1934, the portrait has only been included intermittently in subsequent studies of that artist’s work.
In the Society’s unique three-quarter-length portrait image of the fourteen year-old Mary of Austria, she is turned slightly to her right in the direction of her gaze, her hands folded and partly concealed by the wide sleeves of her garment.
The large hat that Mary wears in the Society’s portrait appears in another picture of her, now in Coburg. Tilted to the right and thus seen from a slightly different angle, it is recognisably the same, increasing the likelihood that both are representations of an actual hat. It could well be one of two known to have been given to her by her grandfather, the Emperor Maximilian I. In 1517, Maximilian ordered a velvet hat to be made for Mary, asking to see a drawing of the design and demanding to know the number and size of the rubies, diamonds and pearls used to decorate it. Anna of Hungary was to be provided with something similar. In addition to this bespoke hat, Maximilian also gave Mary a second-hand one that had belonged to his late wife, Bianca Maria Sforza.
The portrait painting has been attributed to the German painter Hans Maler (c 1480–c 1526/9) on stylistic and historical grounds. The Society’s picture has several of the characteristics associated with Maler’s portraiture: the graduated background, the inclined pose of the sitter and diagonality of the composition, the ornamental quality of the jewellery and the costume, the boldness of the drawing, the soft modelling of the facial features and the luminous, rosy flesh tones. First attributed to Maler by Gustav Glück in 1934, the portrait has only been included intermittently in subsequent studies of that artist’s work.