#17th century spain

[portrait-paintings]

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.

[nobility-art]

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.

[tygerland]

• Portrait of Innocent X (1650) by Diego Velázquez.

• Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X (1953) by Francis Bacon.

[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

[marianadecarlos]

Charles II and Marie Louise of Orleans Fanart

"She is the most beautiful of all" Charles II of Spain

The art depicts Charles II introducing his wife to his court and touring her around the Alcazar Real Palace.

I cried the first time I read their love story because it was sad and tragic. It was an affectionate and genuine relationship. Charles II loved his first wife and did everything he could to make her happy. Although Marie Louise did not feel the same way for Charles at first, she eventually fell for him. Despite the people and the Spanish court hating Marie Louise for not producing children, they had a loving relationship. She was exposed to rituals and medicines to cure her "infertility," but she began to weaken over time. One day, while horseback riding, she felt immense pain in her belly and fell ill. Sensing that death was near, confessors were summoned to save her soul. Charles was by her side, holding her hand. She leaned towards him and said, "Many women may be with His Majesty, but none will love him more than I do," before passing away.

[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.

[makosxa]

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

[solnunquamoccidit]

Retrato orante de Da. Mariana de Austria

by Diego Velázquez (Sevillian, 1599 – 1660) oil on canvas (147 × 209 cm), 1655

Museo del Prado

[aahsoka]

cookin up something

[proud-spaniard]

Inmaculada Concepción, cuadro de Velázquez (siglo XVII).

Immaculate Conception, painting by Velázquez (17th century).