Bartolomé González y Serrano: Portrait of Anna of Austria (1570)

(Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain)

A painting by the Spanish artist Bartolomé González y Serrano (1564-1627). The lady on this painting is Anna of Austria (1549-1580), daughter of Holy Roman emperor Maximilian II (1527-1576) and his wife Archduchess Maria of Austria (1528-1603). Anna became the fourth wife of king Philip II of Spain, her uncle, in 1570 after Philip's third wife, Elisabeth, died in childbirth. The marriage proved to be a happy one and the couple got 5 children, including the successor of king Philip: the future king Philip III (1578-1621). Anna died in 1627 of a heart failure shortly after the birth of her fifth child. Painting from around 1570.