Lot Essay
The Infanta Caterina was the daughter of King Philip II of Spain and of his third wife Elizabeth, daughter of King Henri II of France. In 1585 she married the young duke Charles Emmanuel (1562-1630), whose father, duke Emmanuel Philibert had re-established the House of Savoy as one of the leading powers of Europe. An ally of Spain, duke Emmanuel Philibert had taken part in the battle of Saint-Quentin in 1557. The marriage of his son to the Infanta of Spain was a posthumous triumph which sealed the alliance of Savoy against France.
The present drawing is similar to a series of portraits engraved for Cremona Fedelissima citta e nobilissima colonia de Romani rappresentata in disegno suo contado.., published in Cremona in 1585 by Antonio Campi. The book, retracing the history of Cremona up to 1584, contained a number of portraits engraved by Agostino Carracci after Campi's designs. Cremona Fedelissima was dedicated to King Philip II and naturally included a portrait of him and his four successive wives, D. DeGrazia Bohlin, Prints and related Drawings by the Carracci Family, exhib. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979, nos. 89-92, illustrated. Campi's drawings for that series, although more dry in handling than the present one, are close in type and bear similar inscriptions. Queen Anna of Austria, Philip's fourth wife and cousin and Caterina's mother-in-law, wears the same type of jewellery as the present sitter, DeGrazia, op. cit., fig. 92a. The jewel, in the shape of a cartouche with enamel foliage and inset with stones, had been fashionable in Spain since the 1550s. A design very close to the jewel in the present drawing is found in a repertory of models collated at the end of the 16th Century in Spain, the Llibres de Passanties in the Instituto Municipal de Historia de la Ciudad: it is of a link made in the studio of Benet Bernux in 1586, P.E. Muller, Jewels in Spain, 1500-1800, New York, 1972, pp. 52-7, fig. 59.
Another portrait of the Infanta Caterina by Sofonisba Anguissola, formerly attributed to Coello, is in the Prado in Madrid.
The present drawing is similar to a series of portraits engraved for Cremona Fedelissima citta e nobilissima colonia de Romani rappresentata in disegno suo contado.., published in Cremona in 1585 by Antonio Campi. The book, retracing the history of Cremona up to 1584, contained a number of portraits engraved by Agostino Carracci after Campi's designs. Cremona Fedelissima was dedicated to King Philip II and naturally included a portrait of him and his four successive wives, D. DeGrazia Bohlin, Prints and related Drawings by the Carracci Family, exhib. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979, nos. 89-92, illustrated. Campi's drawings for that series, although more dry in handling than the present one, are close in type and bear similar inscriptions. Queen Anna of Austria, Philip's fourth wife and cousin and Caterina's mother-in-law, wears the same type of jewellery as the present sitter, DeGrazia, op. cit., fig. 92a. The jewel, in the shape of a cartouche with enamel foliage and inset with stones, had been fashionable in Spain since the 1550s. A design very close to the jewel in the present drawing is found in a repertory of models collated at the end of the 16th Century in Spain, the Llibres de Passanties in the Instituto Municipal de Historia de la Ciudad: it is of a link made in the studio of Benet Bernux in 1586, P.E. Muller, Jewels in Spain, 1500-1800, New York, 1972, pp. 52-7, fig. 59.
Another portrait of the Infanta Caterina by Sofonisba Anguissola, formerly attributed to Coello, is in the Prado in Madrid.