MASP

The sitter belongs to the Order of the Golden Fleece, as attested by the depiction of its insignia, with flames from which the golden fleece hangs. In 1477 the control of the Order was transferred to the House of Hapsburg when Mary of Burgundy, daughter of Charles the Bold, married Maximilian, archduke of Austria. Later, when Maximilian’s son, Philip II, rose to the Castilian throne, the Order was transferred to Spain. After the death of Charles II in 1700 and the resultant extinction of the Hapsburg lineage in Spain, Charles VI of Austria claimed the supreme rule of the Order, which he instituted in Vienna, in 1713. However, this claim was not acknowledged by Philip V of Spain, and the Order remained in existence in Austria and Spain. Therefore, in principle both sitter and portraitist could be Spanish or Austrian. Other elements contribute, however, to the verisimilar Previous Attributions of this painting to a painter at the court of the Hapsburg-Lorraine. First of all, the relative similarity of the model’s facial features and those of members of the House of Hapsburg-Lorraine becomes evident when one juxtaposes, for example, his portrait and the double portrait of emperor Joseph II and his brother Pietro Leopoldo, grand duke of Tuscany, painted by Pompeo Batoni in 1769 (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, inventory 1628). The Portrait of a Member of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine in the Masp Collection was painted by a portraitist of remarkable quality, most probably the painter of the House of Hapsburg-Lorraine, given that in Austria the Golden Fleece was only bestowed on members of the high nobility, i.e., the Hapsburg-Lorraine, princes, and heads of State.

— Unknown authorship, 1998

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