Portraiture, Gender, and Power in Sixteenth-Century Art

This exciting and wide-ranging volume examines the construction and dissemination of the image of female power during the Renaissance. Chapters examine the creation, promotion, and display of the image of women in power, and how the artistic and cultural patronage they developed helped them craft a self-image that greatly contributed to strengthening their power, consolidating their political legitimacy, and promoting their authority. Contributors cover diverse models of sixteenth-century female power: from ruling queens, regents, and governors, to consorts of sovereigns and noblewomen outside the court. The women selected were key political figures and patrons of art in England, France, Castile, the Low Countries, the Holy Roman Empire, and Italian city states. The volume engages with crucial and controversial debates regarding the nature and use of portraiture as well as the changing patterns of how portraits were displayed, building a picture of the principal iconographic solutions and representational strategies that artists used. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, gender studies, women's studies, and Renaissance studies.

Noelia García Pérez is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Murcia, Spain.

Part 1 Creating the Image of Women in Power 1. Bronzino's Portrait of Eleonora di Toledo with Her Son Giovanni: The Invention of a Secular Icon for the Early Modern State 2. Portrayals of Catherine de' Medici at the Granducal Medici Court 3. Medals, Cameos, and Miniatures: Small Format Female Portraits at the Court of Philip II 4. The Failure to Construct a Visual Image of Gendered Power: Anthonis Mor's Portrait of Mary I, Queen of England, in the Prado Part 2 Uses, Functions, and Ways of Displaying 5. Portrait Galleries for the House of Habsburg in the Low Countries: Margaret of Austria in Mechelen and Mary of Hungary in Brussels 6. Captive in a Portrait Gallery: Titian's Portraits of John Frederick I of Saxony (c. 1548 and c. 1551) and the Collection of Mary of Austria, Queen of Hungary 7. "So They May Beseech God on His Behalf": Devotion, Courtly Pomp, and Dynastic Presence in the Portrait Collections of Juana of Austria, Princess of Portugal, and Maria of Austria in the Monastery of Las Descalzas Reales in Madrid 8. The Portrait Gallery of Mencía de Mendoza, Marquise of Zenete 9. Maria de Mendoza, Portraits, and the Negotiation of Memory: The Display of Her Painting Collection in the Cobos-Mendoza Palace in Valladolid