Pourbus was court painter of Archduke Albert in Brussels when in 1600 he went to Italy at the invitation of Vincenzo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua. This portrait must depict the Duke of Mantua's daughter, Margherita, to judge from Pourbus's full-length portrait of her dated 1605 in the Uffizi, Florence. In this period Rubens also worked for Vincenzo Gonzaga, but he eagerly left the painting of formal portraits and a gallery of "beauties" to Pourbus, who in 1611 became Maria de' Medici's court painter in Paris.
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Title:Margherita Gonzaga (1591–1632), Princess of Mantua
Artist:Frans Pourbus the Younger (Netherlandish, Antwerp 1569–1622 Paris)
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:36 1/2 × 27 1/4 in. (92.7 × 69.2 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Bequest of Collis P. Huntington, 1900
Accession Number:25.110.21
[Horace Buttery, London, in 1894]; Collis P. Huntington, New York (until d. 1900; life interest to his widow, Arabella D. Huntington, later [from 1913] Mrs. Henry E. Huntington, 1900–d. 1924; life interest to their son, Archer Milton Huntington, 1924–terminated in 1925)
Honolulu Academy of Arts. "Four Centuries of European Painting," December 8, 1949–January 29, 1950, no. 3.
Art Gallery of Toronto. "Fifty Paintings by Old Masters," April 21–May 21, 1950, no. 4.
Palm Beach. Society of the Four Arts. "Spanish Painting," January 11–February 6, 1952, no. 8 (as "Infanta Isabella of Spain," by Alonzo Sanchez Coello).
Little Rock. Arkansas Arts Center. "Five Centuries of European Painting," May 16–October 26, 1963, unnumbered cat. (p. 16).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Vanity Fair," December 15, 1977–September 3, 1978, not in catalogue (as "Portrait of a Woman").
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Extreme Beauty: The Body Transformed," December 6, 2001–March 17, 2002, no. 34.
Winter Park, Fla. Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Rollins College. "Fashionable Portraits in Europe," August 15, 2015–January 3, 2016, no catalogue.
Paris. Musée du Luxembourg. "Rubens: portraits princiers," October 4, 2017–January 14, 2018, no. 5.
Harry B. Wehle. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of Italian, Spanish, and Byzantine Paintings. New York, 1940, pp. 225–26, ill.
Martin S. Soria. Letter to Margaretta Salinger. May 24, 1945, attributes it to Pourbus and identifies the sitter as Margherita Gonzaga on the basis of comparison with portraits of her mother, Eleonora de' Medici (Palazzo Pitti, Florence, and New York art market); tentatively dates it between 1601 and 1603.
Millia Davenport. The Book of Costume. New York, 1948, vol. 1, p. 466, no. 1232, ill., tentatively dates it 1590.
Martin S. Soria. "Gonzaga Portraits by Frans Pourbus II." Art Quarterly 15 (Spring 1952), pp. 38, 43–44 n. 7, fig. 4 [text similar to Ref. Soria 1945], attributes it to Pourbus and identifies the sitter as Margherita Gonzaga on the basis of comparison with portraits of her mother, Eleonora de' Medici (Palazzo Pitti, Florence, and New York art market); tentatively dates it between 1601 and 1603.
Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 88.
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 277, ill., as "Margherita Gonzaga (1591–1632), Princess of Mantua" by Frans Pourbus the Younger.
Harold Koda. Extreme Beauty: The Body Transformed. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2001, p. 23, ill. (color), as painted 1625–30.
Walter Liedtke. "Toward a New Edition of Flemish Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art." Munuscula Amicorum: Contributions on Rubens and His Colleagues in Honour of Hans Vlieghe. Ed. Katlijne van der Stighelen. Vol. 2, Turnhout, Belgium, 2006, p. 669, fig. 3.
Nadeije Laneyrie-Dagen inRubens: portraits princiers. Exh. cat., Musée du Luxembourg. Paris, 2017, p. 53.
David Mandrella inRubens: portraits princiers. Exh. cat., Musée du Luxembourg. Paris, 2017, pp. 82, 214, no. 5, ill. p. 83 (color).
Raphaël Masson. Rubens: portraits princiers: familles régnantes au temps de Marie de Médicis: l'album de l'exposition. Paris, 2017, ill. p. 16 (color).
Margherita Gonzaga was the eldest daughter of Vincenzo I Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, and Eleonora de' Medici (sister of Marie de' Medici). In 1606 she married Henry of Lorraine, duc de Bar. A similar half-length portrait has been recorded in the Alejandro E. Shaw collection, Buenos Aires; a full-length signed portrait by Pourbus, possibly of Margherita Gonzaga was formerly in the Uffizi, Florence (no. 3428), and is now in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence (no. 2279).
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