Queen Eleanor of Austria

In July 1530 Eleanor of Austria married Francis I of France. The match was a term of the peace between the French king and her younger brother, the Emperor Charles V, and it came after years in which Francis had fought Charles and spent a year as his prisoner in Spain. Joos van Cleve painted the new queen two or three years later, during his stay at the French court.

The detail to look for is the letter painted into the picture. Its address is written in Spanish, to the most Christian and very powerful lady, the Queen, my lady. Most Christian was the old title of the kings of France. Spanish was the language Eleanor had lived in for years, as the widow of King Manuel of Portugal and then at her brother's court. The small panel came to Vienna only in 1908, bought from the Minutoli collection in Liegnitz, today Legnica in Poland.