Queen Isabella of Spain (1602–1644)

Isabella of Bourbon was French by birth, a daughter of Henri IV of France married into the Spanish royal house as a girl and made queen of Spain. She disliked sitting for painters, so likenesses of her from life are scarce. This one dates from around 1632, when Velazquez was the king's court painter in Madrid, and much of it was carried out by his workshop under his eye, as large court portraits usually were. It was once full-length and later trimmed down to match a companion picture of her husband, Philip IV. She stands in the stiff, dark, tightly boned Spanish court dress of the day, a costume built to display rank rather than the person inside it. Isabella died in 1644, still in her early forties, without living to see her husband outlast her by two decades.