Bust of Emperor Charles V

The importance that the House of Austria gives to the configuration of the official image of its members makes the future of the emperor Charles V very clear from an early age: long face, prominent jaw and hanging lower lip, dressed with an eye-catching hat with big feathers and with the chain of the Order of the Golden Fleece. The portrait could have been made towards 1520, date close to his coronation in Aquisgran, and shows a young face that still lacks the vitality and power that we normally associate with the more mature representations of the emperor. There are two similar portraits made in colored clay in museums in Bruges and Ghent. It seems it was Pietro Torrigiano the one that introduced this type of Florentine bust in the center of Europe although it was the formal Flemish style the one used for its manufacture, the same we have seen in the religious works of this room but, serving this time, political exaltation