The Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand of Austria

In early September 1634 a Spanish and imperial army beat the Swedes at Nördlingen, in southern Germany. Among its commanders was Ferdinand, younger brother of Philip IV, a cardinal since the age of ten, sent north to govern the Spanish Netherlands after the death of his aunt Isabella. Two months later he made his formal entry into Brussels, and what he wore that day is what Van Dyck painted. An inventory taken in the royal Alcázar in Madrid in 1636 goes through it piece by piece, the crimson velvet coat with gold braid, the crimson sash worked in gold, the commander's baton in his right hand, the brocade curtain behind him, and records that the picture is by the hand of Van Dyck. The marquis of Leganés, a Spanish general and collector, carried it from Brussels to the court. The image was wanted so widely that copies reached collections as grand as Cardinal Mazarin's in Paris, and the city of Antwerp asked Van Dyck for one in his own hand for its town hall.