Portrait of the Archduchess Claudia as Galla Placidia

In 1672 the court at Innsbruck wanted a portrait of Archduchess Claudia Felicitas, who was nineteen and being matched with the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold the First. Her mother, Anna de' Medici, wrote to her brother in Florence asking for Justus Sustermans, the Medici court portraitist. He was too old for the journey, so Dolci went instead and stayed from April to September. The wedding took place in 1673, and the canvas was still unfinished. He completed it in Florence in 1675, by which time Grand Duke Cosimo the Third had given him a different instruction. The sitter was to become an ideal image of Galla Placidia, the daughter of the emperor Theodosius, remembered for restoring the privileges of the Church, and dead for more than 1,200 years. Claudia Felicitas died the following spring, aged 22. What Cosimo asked for is still on the canvas, the nimbus behind her head, a crucifix in her hand, a crown and a book set beside her.