The Infantas Isabel Clara Eugenia and Catalina Micaela

The Prado dates this to about 1575. The sitters are the two elder daughters of Philip II, Isabel Clara Eugenia and Catalina Micaela, born a year apart and motherless since 1568. They stand side by side in the ceremonial dress of the Spanish court, stiff brocade over the wide farthingale, ruffs, ropes of pearls, pearls threaded into the hair.

The only thing that connects them is the wreath of small flowers they hold out to each other. The elder looks straight at you and keeps a handkerchief in her free hand. The younger looks away.

Where that arrangement came from may be Flemish. Lorne Campbell, a specialist in early Netherlandish painting, has suggested Sánchez Coello had in mind van Eyck's Arnolfini portrait, two figures joined across the middle of the picture, which at that time hung in Philip II's own collection in Madrid and is now in London.

In the lower right corner, painted on the canvas, is the number 63, which the picture carried in the 1794 inventory of the Buen Retiro palace.