Ritratto di Marianna d'Austria

Mariana came to Spain to marry the crown prince and ended up marrying his father instead. When the prince, Baltasar Carlos, died, the widowed King Philip the Fourth took his own niece as his second wife to keep the Habsburg line going, and she was still a teenager. Velazquez painted her here around 1652, just back from years in Rome, and you can feel the weight of the arrangement in it. She is nineteen, buried in a black and silver gown built out like architecture, her hair spread into an enormous wired wig, her cheeks rouged to a mask. A single lace handkerchief hangs from one hand. From this portrait on, Velazquez painted the women and children of the court more than almost anything else.