Portrait of Claudia de' Medici

This is one of twelve full-length family portraits Sustermans made for the Medici over some 20 years, all cut to the same size, all given matching carved gilt frames in the 1710s on the orders of Cosimo III. Ten of them hang together in the Salotto Celeste of the Royal Apartments, which puts Claudia a few steps from her second husband, Leopold of Tyrol.

She was widowed at 19 by her first husband, married Leopold in 1626, and was widowed again in 1632. What followed was the serious part of her life. For 14 years she governed Tyrol for her small son while the Thirty Years' War went on around it, reorganising the militia, strengthening the fortresses and keeping the land clear of the French and Swedish armies. She died at Innsbruck in 1648.

She is shown in black, standing full length, with a small dog at her feet. The museum gives this canvas no date of its own beyond the bracket of 1621 to 1645 it puts on the whole set.