Portrait of Archduke Charles of Austria

The Teutonic Order had lost Prussia nearly a century before this was painted. What remained of it was a wealthy German corporation of noble knights, and by 1619 its Grand Master was a Habsburg archduke. That is the dress here, the black cross hanging on a chain and the larger cross embroidered on the shoulder with the imperial eagle on it.

Charles of Austria held the Order together with the prince-bishoprics of Wrocław and Brixen. He was a brother of Emperor Ferdinand II, and also of Maria Maddalena of Austria, who had married into the Medici and was governing Tuscany as regent, which is the family thread that puts his face in a Florentine palace.

The museum dates the canvas between about 1623 and 1625. In 1624 his nephew, Philip IV of Spain, called him to Madrid intending to make him viceroy of Portugal. He fell ill there and died on 28 December, at 34, without ever taking up the post.