Habsburg Court Painter, early 17th Century

Portrait of Emperor Charles V,
oil on panel, 52 x 40 cm, framed

The reverse stamped with the hand of the city of Antwerp.

The artist of this impressive portrait has not as yet been identified. The fact that it is painted on a panel support that was used in early seventeenth-century Antwerp would suggest that it is not a contemporary, but a posthumous portrait of the Emperor. It was probably commissioned for an ancestor’s gallery or may have been made for a ‘Kaisersaal’ in an official building of the Spanish Netherlands. It also appears to be an independent composition, for which no model has been traced. It belongs to a group of high-quality portraits and as part of a gallery that included other portraits of Emperors it is difficult to identify the artist given the high degree of idealisation, and the fact that these galleries were an international phenomenon.