Beloved sisters - double portrait of the infantas Isabel Clara Eugenia and Catalina Micaela of Spain, 1570

 

Infanta Isabel Clara Eugenia (12 August 1566 - 1 December 1633). She married Albert VII, Archduke of Austria and lived to the age of sixty-seven.

Infanta Catalina Micaela (10 October 1567 - 6 November 1597). She married Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy, and died at the age of thirty.

Adapted - and significantly altered - from the essay on the Royal Collection website:

This nearly life-size double-portrait of the daughters of Phillip II of Spain from his third marriage, was formerly attributed to Anthonis Mor and subsequently to Sofonisba Anguissola. However, the overall composition and the modelling of the features and treatment of the hands points toward the work of Alonso Sánchez Coello. It is strikingly similar to Coello's double-portrait of the infantas in the Museo del Prado, and is very close in quality to other known works by the artist. However it lacks the fluency of his brushwork, suggesting it was at least in part painted by one of the artists working in his studio.

Typical of sixteenth-century Spanish court portraiture, the painting depicts the little girls in formal poses and with a precise attention to detail in the painting of their richly ornamented dresses and jewelry. Four-year-old Isabel Clara Eugenia is shown on the left, a green parrot perching on her hand, while her three-year-old sister, Catalina Micaela, holds gloves in her left hand and rests her right on the forepaw of a spaniel who sits on the table. Both girls are wearing dark green dresses which are richly embroidered with flowers and gold lace and trimmed with pearls. During this period it was common for royal children to be depicted almost as miniature adults and in this portrait, the 'al forza', a tuck of fabric around the hem of a skirt, which was a distinctive feature of dress for adult woman in Spain, is clearly shown.

Coello's later portrait of the infantas in the collection of the Museo del Prado, circa 1575.

*

Alonso Sánchez Coello (circa 1531, Benifairó de les Valls - 8 August 1588, Madrid), Spanish Renaissance painter. He was a student of Anthonis Mor and his successor at the Spanish court. He is mainly known for his portraits executed in a style which combines the objectivity of the Flemish tradition with the sensuality of Venetian painting. He was court painter to Philip II.