Emperor Leopold I, full-length, holding a scepter, wearing armour, an ermine lined cloak and the Order of the Golden Fleece,
oil on canvas, 215 x 137.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Aristocratic collection, Naples;
thence by descent;
Private European collection

An attribution for the present painting to Gérard Duchateau has been suggested by Macarena Moralejo Ortega.

The present portrait depicts Emperor Leopold I (1640-1705) full length, wearing amour with gold ornamentation and adorned with the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece beneath an ermine cloak, embellished with pearls and precious stones and fastened with a gem-set brooch.

A richly decorated crown adorns Leopold’s head, possibly the Bohemian crown of Saint Wenceslas, with the cross-bearing globe as the symbol for the divine right of kings (Dei gratia). The scepter in his raised right hand and the orb, positioned on a brocade-decorated gueridon, prove his profane and religious power.

The sword, which is leaning against the emperor’s left leg, emphasises his military strength. His firm, proud gaze focuses directly on the viewer, the distinguishing Habsburg physical attributes of a pronounced lower jaw and lip can be identified.

Leopold I, for whom a clerical career was originally intended, became heir apparent in 1654 after the death of his elder brother Ferdinand, and was elected King of Hungary in 1655 and successively obtained the Crown of Bohemia and Croatia in 1657. Finally, in 1658 he was elected Holy Roman Emperor in Frankfurt.

He married Margarita Teresa of Spain (1651–1673). The painting reflects a desire, to assert his earthly, omnipotent, absolutist status - which demanded gestures of power assertion, grandiloquence and majesty from the head of the Habsburg dynasty and which are fully evident in the present painting. Furthermore, Leopold I’s long period as Emperor, from 1658 to 1705, offered him a series of possibilities for artistic self-representation, generally in response to a variety of needs, such as staging the exercise of his functions, exchanging portraits with other royal courts, or simply decorating his numerous residences with paintings.

Focusing on the paintings Leopold commissioned, there is a large number of portraits from court painters mainly in Vienna, but not only in the court capital. An attribution for the present painting to Gérard Duchateau (Gerarden van Schloss) has been suggested by Macarena Moralejo Ortega, although only few confirmed works by this artist are known. As a portrait painter originally from Brussels, Duchateau was called to the Leopoldinian court. In 1664 and 1672 he travelled to Spain on imperial charge, in order to portray the Spanish members of the court, especially the emperor’s future wife, Margarita Theresa (see fig. 1).

Leopold notified his ambassador in Madrid, Count Pötting, about the arrival of his court portraitist: “On this occasion I am also sending there my valet Gerarden von Schloss […]. He is from Brussels, therefore a vassal of the king and a man who deserves everything. Honestly educated, he is pious and paints very well, especially small portraits, like the one I sent you a year ago. Therefore, it is my intention and my will […] that he receives [the] permission to portray my wife and the prince. Opus laudabit magistrum. He has made my portrait in large and small […]. This is my high will, because Spanish painters do not offer me any satisfaction.” (F. Polleross, Tra maestà e modestia. L’attività di rappresentanza dell’imperatore Leopoldo I, in: F. Checa Cremades [ed.], Velàzquez, Bernini, Luca Giordano: le corti del Barocco, Milan 2004, p. 195)

Ortega points out some similarities between the current portrait and the one in the Kunsthistorisches Museum of his wife Margarita Theresa, notably: the arrangement of the Infanta in the centre of the composition with the elegant hand position, holding a fan and a medallion with the portrait of her future husband in the loose left hand. The details and the detailed reproduction of the Infanta’s dress, the cloth’s drapery with orange-toned highlights, the placement of the sitter in an open space resembling the gallery in her betrothed’s representation, and the table, also with attributes such as the holy scriptures, are also strongly reminiscent of the method of execution used by the Brussels painter.