Portrait of Prince Ferdinand

Southern Germany or Austria, ca. 1520 , Öl auf Holz , 31,4 cm x 22 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Picture Gallery, Inv.-Nr. 4455

This bust portrait of the ten to twelve-year-old Ferdinand, who was born in 1503, is probably the earliest known depiction of the later Emperor Ferdinand I. This likeness of the younger son of King Philip the Handsome and his wife Joana of Castile is presumably a copy after a painting executed in Spain in 1515. This copy must have been produced in 1517, when Ferdinand was accepted into the Order of the Golden Fleece. It is also probably the companion piece to a portrait of King Ludwig II from Hungary. We may assume that the painting dates from the time of the wedding of Ferdinand and Anna of Bohemia and Hungary. MP