#17th century spain

[art-portraits]

Portrait of a Buffon

Artist: Juan van der Hamen y Leon (Spanish, 1596 - 1631)

Date: circa 1626

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Collection: Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain

A sumptuously dressed and armed dwarf holds a ruler´s staff, an attribute of power that cannot have corresponded to his status. He was probably one of the court buffoons, who were showered with presents and dressed in ostentatious luxury. Since the sixteenth century, portraits of these figures were quite customary, although it was Velázquez who explored this genre with singular mastery. The date generally attributed to this extraordinary portrait indicates that the model might be Bartolillo, a dwarf whose presence in the Palace is documented between 1621 and 1626. Juan van der Hamen was best known for his excellent still lifes, although he also made religious paintings and portraits of high quality, like the present one. Notable here, besides the marked detail and tenebrist lighting, is the expressive strength of the protagonist, who is portrayed with enormous dignity and an expression that is practically defiant.

[royalty-nobility]

Portrait of Mariana of Austria

Artist: Diego Velázquez (Spanish, 1599-1660)

Genre: Portrait

Depicted People: Mariana of Austria, Queen of Spain

Date: 1652–1653

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Collection: Museo del Prado, Madrid

Portrait of Mariana of Austria is a 1652–1653 oil-on-canvas painting by Diego Velázquez, the leading artist of the Spanish Golden Age, existing in a number of versions. Its subject, Doña Mariana (known as Maria Anna), was the daughter of Emperor Ferdinand III and Maria Anna of Spain. She was nineteen years old when the painting was completed. Although described as vivacious and fun-loving in life, she is given an unhappy expression in Velázquez's portrait. The portrait is painted in shades of black and red, and her face is heavily made up. Her right hand rests on the back of a chair, and she holds a lace handkerchief in her left hand. Her bodice is decorated with jewelry, including a gold necklace, bracelets and a large gold brooch. A clock rests on scarlet drapery behind her, signifying her status and discernment.

Mariana had been betrothed to her first cousin, Prince Baltasar Carlos. He died in 1646 aged sixteen, and in 1649 she married her uncle, Baltasar Carlos's father, Philip IV, who sought her hand so as to preserve the hegemony of the Habsburg dynasty.[A] She became queen consort on their marriage, and after her husband's death in September 1665, regent during the minority of her son, Charles II, until he came of age in 1675. Owing to Charles' inhibiting physical weaknesses, she dominated the political life in Spain until her death in 1696.

[marianadecarlos]

Mariana of Austria and Margarita Theresa Fanart

Be warned as some events I wrote had some artistic license. 

On the morning of September 17, 1665, the bells tolled throughout the city. Jose Everardo Nithard immediately went to the Queen's chambers. Upon hearing the bells, Queen Mariana awoke and asked what was happening. The courtiers present kissed her hand. Nithard approached her and informed her that the king had passed away. The Queen began to shed a tear but kept her composure. She began to change her wardrobe from extravagant to a simple, rigid mourning dress, with the only adornment on her finger being her wedding ring. Surgeons and attendants were cleaning and embalming the king’s body while a mass was recited at the head of the royal bed. Margarita Theresa, dressed in mourning attire, approached Mariana, hugged her, and wept excessively. Mariana began to cry as she comforted her daughter.

Source: Queen, Mother, and Stateswoman Mariana of Austria and the Government of Spain by: Silvia Z. Mitchell

[makosxa]

Felipe V of Spain (!!)

[little-candy-store-of-horrors]

"Bella gerunt alii, tu felix Austria nube!"

Day 6 of @spaus-week 's challenge

"Let others wage war, you, happy Austria, marry!" Was the political strategy of the Habsburgs, and marry did the House of Austria! Infamously, scandalously, sensationally. A mangled wreath of a family tree. We all know this horror story. And we all know the bitter end.

After Emperor Charles V&I divided his Spanish and Austrian inheritance ((also gained through his parents' and grandparents' marriages)) to his descendants and those of his younger brother Ferdinand I respectively, the Habsburg dynasty split into two branches. The Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs notoriously intermarried for generations, right up till Charles II of Spain whose heirless death in 1700 sparked the War of the Spanish Succession. The inbreeding and this informal Latin motto behind it has been blamed to hell and back for their implosion, for the physical ugliness that ran in this royal bloodline. But it is not to say the Habsburgs never went to war, nor that dynastic marriage was a political strategy unique to them! But they were, if anything, bloody successful at it seeing how they did rule half of Europe for 200 years, and then a lot of it in the Austrian line for another 200. Before anyone figured out inbreeding was bad it was considered a privilege to marry into the Habsburgs, with Louis XV claiming that Louis XVI's betrothal to Marie Antoinette was marrying the "Daughter of the Caesars", and Napoleon Bonaparte infamously ditching Josephine for Marie Louise. Charles II was a poor sod who took the fall and the mugs were wretched from the same ugly gene being passed around countless times*, but they did wear power and privilege well.

💅✨ Symbolism bc I'm a NERD and this my Category 10 autism event ✨💅 :

Charles V & Ferdinand I's joint portrait based on that propaganda woodcut, behind them the colours of the Habsburg flag.

The Spanish branch, comprising Charles V & I's descendants, is represented with a black background, and the Austrian branch, comprising Ferdinand I's descendants, gold, both colours pulled from their flag, a dynasty intertwined but split in two.

Round frames denote that the individual had no heirs.

Only the most influential ruler on both sides, the King of Spain and the Holy Roman Emperor, are represented as framed portraits, explaining Archduke Charles II's unframed depiction.

The unconventional placement of Charles II of Spain and Emperor Rudolf II's nameplates are a nod to their queerness: their intersexuality and bisexuality respectively.

Ferdinand III's portrait is lopsided because of the losses of the 30 Years War.

Cracks in Charles II's portrait: 🙃🙃🙃

[my18thcenturysource]

I was looking for something else, but I ended up downloading this Spanish tailoring book from the Biblioteca Digital Hispánica from 1618 (!!!!!), and after a song and some licences from the King and thank yous to Don Andrés Roig, and the note that the book does not contain anything against the Catholic faith, the book starts with the description of measurements for fabrics: la bara de medir.

Of course it has PAGES of the ways a bara can be divided, notes for how many fingers are half a palm (6 fingers), and other divisions and measurement. If you know Spanish, you can read the first page up here and the way it is signaled later in the book for the patterns like this one of a doublet:

I love the way it is explained that you can cut a garment in different ways for different widths of fabric, in this case the first option of for a fabric of one bara and 6 fingers (these appear in the first page up here), the second 1 bara and a forth, and the third is 1 bara, a forth, an ochavo (6 fingers) and 1 finger:

Weird way to measure, but sure, we all can move our patterns with this nice guide.

All images from the book "Geometría y Traça Perteneciente al Oficio de Sastres", (1618), Rocha Burgen, Francisco, Biblioteca Nacional de España.

[catherinesboleyn]

Aine Mcnamara as Maria Anna of Spain

Mary & George 1.07

[diemelusine]

Portrait of the Infanta Maria Theresa of Spain (c. 1653) by Diego Velázquez. Kunsthistorisches Museum.

[aliensfoundthisblog]

ESTEBAN MURILLO, BARTOLOMÉ (hacia 1650) Inmaculada Concepción (La Colosal) [Óleo sobre lienzo] Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla, Sevilla, Andalucía, España

[wikitrajes]

Painted dish. Talavera, 1651-1675

--------

Plato pintado. Talavera, 1651-1675

Pasta cerámica

Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas, CE00019

[ltwilliammowett]

An early 17th century naval action in the long history of warfare between Spain and the Netherlands, by Oswald Walters Brierly (1817-1894)

[mapsontheweb]

The new border between Spain and France, 1659.

via cartesdhistoire

Source: “Atlas de Historia de España”, Fdo García de Cortázar, Planeta, 2005

Within the framework of the Thirty Years' War, France declared war on Spain in May 1635. Starting in 1639, the French army invaded Roussillon, beginning with the occupation of the fortress of Salses. Richelieu fueled the revolt of the Catalans against Philip IV (started in June 1640), granting the insurgent leaders and troops the protection of French sovereignty (recognized by the insurgents in January 1641). Catalonia's return to Spanish obedience was effective only in October 1652 when Barcelona surrendered.

The fatigue produced by the French occupation, whose army was as burdensome or more burdensome than the Spanish and whose policy was more absolutist and inconsiderate than that of Olivares, alienated the population from the French, but Richelieu's move later served Louis XIV.

Indeed, the Peace of Westphalia (1648) did not put an end to the Franco-Spanish War, which ended with the defeat of Las Dunas (June 14, 1658). June 25, 1658, was the “folle journée” of neighboring Dunkirk: the city, Spanish in the morning, was taken by the French at noon and they handed it over to their ally England in the afternoon (it will be definitively French in 1662) .

The Peace of the Pyrenees (November 1659) meant the loss of Roussillon and Upper Cerdanya, with the establishment of the "dean border of Europe" between France and Spain. It also meant the definitive end of Spanish hegemony. On the other hand, one of the clauses of the treaty, which agreed to the marriage of Louis by a financially exhausted country), would later justify French interventionism in the Netherlands and, above all, would pave the way for the Spanish Crown to fall at the end of the century to the Bourbons, the current reigning dynasty in Spain.

[historyguide]

A visual guide about one of the most famous works of Diego Velazquez.

[marianadecarlos]

The Birth of Philip Prospero Fanart

Philip Prospero was born on November 28, 1657, in the Royal Alcazar of Madrid. He was the first son of Philip IV of Spain and Mariana of Austria. His birth brought joy to the kingdom, but his delivery caused his mother to have childbed fever, which most did not notice because of their joy. Queen Mariana was bedridden for days after the birth and she survived.

On the day of the birth, not a bench nor a table was left unbroken in the palace, nor a single pastry-cook’s nor tavern that was not sacked. Tomorrow [December 6] they say that his Majesty will go on horseback to the Atocha to give thanks to the Mother of God… They say the prince is a pretty little chap, and that the King wishes him to be baptized at once, before the extreme cold comes on… There are to be masquerades, bull-fights and cane-tourneys as soon as the Queen stands up to see them, as well as plays with machinery invented by an engineer, a servant of the Nuncio, to be represented at the theatre of Retiro, and the saloon of the palace… The municipality, following the lead of the Councils, have gone to congratulate the King… and no gentleman, great or small, has failed to do the like.

His baptism was described to have some mishaps, starting with the Ceremonial Napkin carried by Condestable de Castilla, an unpopular military officer, He made a scene at Prospero's baptism in the following matter:

It seems that the crush of the people was so great that a staircase gave way; this disarranged the procession as it left the chapel, and in particular prevented the Duque de Bejar from taking his place and bearing away the "mazapan". The "mazapan" was not a sweet meat, but a lump of breadcrumb on which the officiating ecclesiastic wiped his fingers after anointing the child with holy oil. The bread was enclosed in a highly decorated reptacle made of marzipan and carried on a richly worked piece of needlework. It seems to be a object which evoked singular curiosity through little relevance. As the Duque de Bejar was unable to be its barrier, Philip was asked what should be done, he was told master of ceremonies to ask the Condestable De Castilla to substitute, This gentleman replied that he was sorry but he had an injured arm. Philip IV, furious, repeated his order, whereupon he replied, "The Condestable De Castilla are too exalted to fill the gaps and voids left by others. The Duque de Alburquerque carried the ewer, the Duque of Terranova, the salt sellar. Last came the Duque of Pastrana carrying on this occasion the famous mazapan. It was made in the shape of a castle with gold and silver ornamentation. The chrism is a mixture of oil and balm used to anoint the infant. Owing to its Sacrosanct Character, It was those days covered much coveted by ill-intentioned persons; hence the drops of chrism deposited on the bread crumb with the Mazapan might be stolen. The infant was naked at this baptism, At the baptism, the infant was unclothed, prompting the Infanta Maria Theresa to ask why she had to present her brother in this manner. It was explained that this tradition was a way to demonstrate his gender.

Source:

Carlos, A king who would not die by John Langdon Davis

[makosxa]

chares ii of spain my babyy i want to ruffle his hair and kiss him on the forehead–

[little-candy-store-of-horrors]

Happy ((belated, In Character ™)) to THE poor little meow meow of the Habsburg Dynasty 🥳

Bonus Kitty Boy: