Ritratto di Anna d'Austria

Her name is a little confusing. Anne of Austria was Spanish, born a daughter of the king of Spain, but the Spanish royal house was a branch of the Habsburgs, the House of Austria, and that name stayed with her. She was married to the young Louis XIII of France in 1615, when both bride and groom were 14. Rubens painted her around 1623, while he was living in Paris on an enormous commission for her mother-in-law, Marie de Medici. The marriage was a cold one and stayed childless for years, which left her place at the French court uneasy. The son everyone was waiting for, the future Louis XIV, did not arrive until 1638, after 23 years of marriage. The portrait itself is now often given to Rubens's busy workshop rather than to his own hand.