Portrait of Maria Anna of Spain, Queen of Hungary (1606-1646)

Velázquez painted this in 1630, during a long working trip through Italy, and it did a very specific job. The sitter is the Infanta Maria Anna, younger sister of King Philip IV of Spain, and she had just been married by proxy to a Habsburg cousin she had not yet met, the future Holy Roman Emperor. Portraits like this one travelled ahead of the bride: a keepsake for the family she was leaving and a first look for the court she was joining. Velázquez gives her the pale Habsburg skin, the heavy lower lip that ran in the family, and a steady, unillusioned gaze. She would leave Spain not long after and never really return, ending her life as an empress in Vienna.