Portrait of Emperor Ferdinand II (1578–1637), oil on canvas, 43.5 x 34.6 cm, framed

Provenance:
European private collection.

Exhibited:
Hans von Aachen, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, 2010/11 (ex catalogue).

Dr Eliska Fucikova, Prague, confirmed the attribution of the present painting, which had not been published until it was exhibited in Vienna, as an autograph work by the Prague court painter Hans von Aachen.

The present work was painted in 1603, when Emperor Rudolf II sent Hans von Aachen to the courts of Graz, Innsbruck, Mantua, Modena, and Turin in order to portray potential candidates for marriage. During his stay in Graz, the artist did not only paint the likenesses of Archduchesses Eleonora, Constance, and Maria Magdalena, all of whom would have made suitable brides, but also of Ferdinand, their twenty-five-year-old brother and regent of the lands of Inner Austrian (from 1596 on). He was the son of Archduke Charles II of Austria and his wife, Maria of Bavaria. Having come of age, Ferdinand took over the government in Graz in 1596. In 1600 he married his cousin, Maria Anna of Bavaria. Since his uncle, Emperor Matthew, had remained childless, Ferdinand was to succeed him on the throne. In 1617, he was elected King of Bohemia and in 1618, King of Hungary. In 1619, Ferdinand followed his deceased uncle as emperor. The following has been written about Ferdinand II: “Already as a regent of Inner Austria, Ferdinand was a resolved champion of the Counter-Reformation and, from 1619 on, also pursued its goals in the hereditary lands. His reign as emperor coincided almost completely with the Thirty Years’ War. He succeeded in largely limiting the powers of the estates, primarily through the reform of Bohemia in 1627. His unbending attitude became evident above all in the Edict of Restitution. The two major victories in the Battles of White Mountain (1620) and Nördlingen (1634) were the most obvious signs of his successful imperial policy. The emperor died in 1637…” (Quoted from Porträtgalerie zur Geschichte Österreichs 1400–1800, Vienna 1982, p. 122).

That same year, i.e., 1603, Hans von Aachen’s painter colleague Joseph Heintz the Elder painted a full-length portrait of Archduke Ferdinand in the company of a royal dwarf (today in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna).