King Charles II. of Spain (1661-1700) as a Twelve-Year-Old

Charles II (1661–1700), the son of Philip IV and Mariana of Austria, was the last Spanish king of the Habsburg dynasty. He inherited the throne at the age of four, and his mother acted as regent until 1675. From this point onwards, the monarch entrusted the task of governing the kingdom to various favourites, among them his half-brother Don Juan José of Austria (Cat.No. 1297). He married María Luisa of Orleans in 1679 and Mariana of Neuburg in 1690. Neither of his two wives bore him children and his death triggered the war of the Spanish succession between the Habsburg claimant (Archduke Charles) and the House of Bourbon (the future Philip V of Spain).
The Asturian artist Juan Carreño de Miranda began to work for the court in 1659 and was appointed painter to the king ten years later. In 1671 he became court painter, the highest post to which any artist of the period could aspire. One of his most important tasks was to establish the official portrait of the monarch. Portraits, especially of members of royalty, played an essential role as gifts in a Europe whose monarchies were linked by family ties. Carreño carried on the tradition of portraiture that had been brought to the courts of Charles V (1500–1558) and Philip II (1527–1598) by the painter Anthonis Mor and espoused under the latter by Alonso Sánchez Coello. This iconography, established as typically Spanish, continued to be used by Juan Pantoja de la Cruz during Philip III’s reign. Diego Velázquez brought this genre to the pinnacle of its development in the court portraits of members of the royal family.
Carreño portrayed the king and his mother many times in very similar works that vary greatly in quality, some evidencing considerable involvement by members of his studio. The earliest painting of the monarch is that held by the Museo de Bellas Artes of Asturias (dated 1671), followed by the work in the Gemäldegalerie, which is considered the finest example.
All the works in the series are almost identical in iconography; the chief differences are in the age of the monarch. Except for the portrait in the Harrach collection, all the rest show the king dressed in black with the Order of the Golden Fleece attached to his buttons, holding a handkerchief in his right hand and a hat in his left, and framed by the red curtains of the Hall of Mirrors, the most symbolic and solemn room in the Real Alcázar of Madrid since the reign of Philip IV. The Real Alcázar was the residence of the Spanish kings from the time of Emperor Charles V until its destruction by fire in 1734. Its highly emblematic ornamentation was designed by Velázquez as palace chamberlain and can be defined as the first Italian-style Baroque decoration in Spain. Its exact appearance is known from oil paintings such as the present work by Carreño as well as from documentary sources.
Two decorative elements of particular interest in the present portrait are the furniture and the paintings. The lions that support the marble tables were commissioned from Matteo Bonucelli by Velázquez in 1650 during his trip to Italy, and eleven of the twelve originals are still held by the Museo del Prado and Patrimonio Nacional. The mirrors, decorated with the eagles of the Spanish Habsburgs, were crafted by Domingo de Rioja and are a constant feature in the portraits of Charles II and his mother. However, the paintings reflected in them are even more interesting. Rubens’s "Equestrian Portrait of Philip IV" (lost in 1734) and Titian’s "Tityus" in the Museo del Prado are clearly recognisable. As scholars have pointed out, the first alludes to the continuity of the Spanish monarchy and the second warns of the punishment that will be inflicted on those who commit an outrage against it.
The X-ray image of the painting attests to its high quality. It also shows that the painter made very slight changes in the position of the sword and shortened the length of the wall.| María López-Fanjul y Díez del Corral