Double portrait of Johann Wilhelm von der Pfalz and Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici

This double portrait was painted around 1706 by Jan Frans van Douven, court painter in Düsseldorf to Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine, who stands here in armour beside his wife. The woman on the right is Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici, a daughter of Florence married into a German princely court. At the time she was simply the electress, one more dynastic bride among Europe's ruling houses. History handed her a far larger part. When her brother died in 1737 the Medici line ended with her, and she signed the agreement known as the Family Pact, leaving the whole Medici collection to the Tuscan state on a single condition, that none of it ever leave Florence. That pact is why the Uffizi still holds the treasures it does, this very portrait among them. Anna Maria Luisa outlived her husband by 31 years and returned to Florence a widow, spending her last decades in the city that keeps her family's art.