Philip IV was in trouble. Spain’s far-flung empire, arguably the world’s most powerful, had seriously wobbled in the 1640s — and so had the king’s family life. When the bloody Thirty Years’ War that upended European states and alliances finally came to a brutal end, the Dutch Republic had escaped Madrid’s control, while rival France had bested its neighbor across the Pyrenees, coming out on top in European influence.
Portugal and Catalonia had revolted. A plague devastated Seville, killing half the population. Prince Baltasar Carlos, Philip’s only son and likely heir to all the king’s dominions, had died at 16, apparently a smallpox victim.
Queen Isabella of Bourbon, Philip’s shrewd and beloved wife of nearly 30 years, had succumbed two years before. As bad news piled on bad news, something drastic needed to be done. Enter Mariana, the subject of an extraordinary, monumental full-length portrait painted by the Spanish genius Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, loaned by Madrid’s Prado Museum to Pasadena’s Norton Simon Museum.
The work, seen only once before in the United States, in the artist’s landmark 1989 retrospective in New York, is part of a new exchange partnership between the two museums. The program began in March with the loan to Madrid of the Simon’s signature “Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose” by Francisco de Zurbarán. That painting has returned to California, and Simon chief curator Emily Talbot and associate curato.
