Archduke Albrecht and Isabella before Castle Mariemont

The palace behind the archducal couple had already had a turbulent life. Mary of Hungary, sister of Emperor Charles V and governor of the Netherlands, built a hunting pavilion here in 1546 and gave the place her name, Mariemont, Mary's hill. In 1554 the troops of the French king Henry II burned it, in reprisal for the destruction of his own château at Folembray, and it was rebuilt within a few years. When Archduke Albert and the Infanta Isabella began governing the Spanish Netherlands from Brussels in 1598, both of them keen hunters, they made Mariemont one of their residences and had it enlarged, their architect Wenceslas Cobergher adding corner pavilions. So the building on this copper plate of 1611 was still being extended when Brueghel painted it. None of it survives. In the 1750s it was pulled down for a new château, and French revolutionary troops destroyed that one in 1794. This view measures 9.5 by 14.8 centimetres and lies in a display case in Cabinet 8, in a frame made in the second half of the 17th century.