Rare 17th-Century Portrait Comes to Pasadena

As one of the world’s most powerful empires was crumbling, its line of succession was also in dire straits. After losing his first wife and only son to smallpox, Philip IV of Spain faced an urgent need for a male heir. So, to consolidate the dynastic power of his family, Philip IV married his 14-year-old niece, Mariana of Austria, who had originally been betrothed to his late son. Following their marriage, a portrait of Spain’s new queen consort was commissioned.

Last month, the Norton Simon Museum in Old Pas received this portrait: Diego Velázquez’s Queen Mariana of Austria (1652–53). On special loan from the Museo del Prado, the famed Spanish national art museum in Madrid, this painting is being displayed on the West Coast for the first time. Its last appearance in the United States was over 30 years ago at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Velázquez is regarded as one of the most renowned painters from 17th-century Spain and one of the world’s greatest artists. The completion of Queen Mariana of Austria marked the beginning of the final stage of his career, during which his paintings focused more on women and children, such as in his best-known masterpiece Las Meninas (1656). There are just over 100 signed works from Velázquez’s career, making them extremely rare. Only a handful are housed in America’s finest art museums.

Queen Mariana of Austria is one of the artist’s most accomplished works. “The beauty of the details and her expression and the humanness that you feel when you’re standing in front of a life-size person and she’s got this monumental dress on, you feel that,” Associate Curator Maggie Bell told Forbes. “Velásquez’s ability to create volume is really something you feel in person that doesn’t translate on screen and I’m excited to give that experience to our visitors.”

Mariana played an important role in Spain’s history as regent for her son, Charles II, following the death of her husband. During her regency, she exercised substantial political authority in a period marked by internal strife and waning international influence. She played a key role in managing Spain’s military and diplomatic challenges.

Velásquez’s portrait depicts the young, 18-year-old queen in an extensive dress over a guardainfante. During Mariana’s reign, the rigid wide-hipped undergarment, criticized for its association with concealing pregnancies, gained popularity and became a quintessential part of Spanish court fashion.

The painting is the centerpiece of a larger exhibition, Mariana: Velázquez’s Portrait of a Queen from the Museo Nacional del Prado, organized by Bell and Chief Curator Emily Talbot.

“We were delighted when our colleagues at the Museo del Prado suggested Queen Mariana of Austria as the first loan from the Spanish national collection to the Norton Simon Museum. We have great paintings by 17th-century Spanish artists in our collection, but there are no works by Velázquez at the Norton Simon Museum or at any institution on the West Coast,” Talbot told Artnet News. “Our display contextualizes Velázquez’s extraordinary career by presenting him in the company of artists that he knew and admired, while highlighting the role that Mariana herself played in her own visual representation.”

The exhibition also includes paintings by other influential Baroque artists, such as Guido Reni, Peter Paul Rubens, and Nicolas Poussin. Philip IV’s family, the Habsburgs, placed great importance on art, commissioning and collecting works from distinguished European artists. Their collections and patronage asserted wealth and influence while also reinforcing political and religious ties. By displaying Queen Mariana of Austria alongside the works of other preeminent artists of the time, the exhibition emulates the art that was accessible to the 17th-century Habsburg court.

An adjacent gallery displays paintings by Jusepe de Ribera, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, and Francisco de Zurbarán–other notable Spanish painters of Velázquez’s time–providing viewers with an enhanced experience of Spanish art from the 1600s.

Mariana: Velázquez’s Portrait of a Queen from the Museo Nacional del Prado will be on view through March 24, 2025.