Portrait of Johanna of Austria, mother of Maria de' Medici

Marie de' Medici hardly knew her mother. Johanna of Austria died in Florence in 1578, when Marie was not yet three, and Rubens, painting her more than 40 years later, had to borrow a face. The Louvre traces it to a Florentine type like the posthumous portrait Giovanni Bizzelli made in 1586, which was copied many times. Johanna had brought her husband's family serious rank. She was a daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I and a niece of Charles V, and she married Marie's father, Francesco, in 1565. In the queen's gallery she hung on the left of the entrance wall, turned toward her husband's portrait opposite. Rubens gave her a gown stiff with gold embroidery, a pale veil and a black feathered hat, and his small oil sketch for the figure is now in Copenhagen.