Portrait of Philip I of Castile

Sittow Michael

Reval, 1468/69 -1525

This painting from the estate of Olimpia Aldobrandini depicts Philip I of Castile. It entered the Borghese Collection no later than 1650. Traditionally attributed to Bernard van Orley, critics recently ascribed it to Michael Sittow, the Estonian painter active mostly at several Habsburg courts who is considered one of the most important artists of the Flemish school.

The work depicts the Habsburg ruler dressed as a knight as he holds the hilt of a sword and displays the insignia of the Order of the Golden Fleece on his chest. Characterised by a central pendant in the form of a sheepskin – which alludes to the ‘fleece’ that gave the fraternity its name – the badge was the symbol of the knightly order created by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, in 1431. The subject of the portrait further holds a purple carnation, perhaps an allusion to his marriage to Joanna the Mad. He also wears a refined headpiece, embellished with a large, round medal bearing the motto ‘MEMENTO MEI O MATER DEI’ and showing the Madonna and Child.

Object details

Catalogue entry

A portrait depicting a man adorned with the prestigious Toson d’oro [Order of the Golden Fleece] was listed in two different inventories of the Aldobrandini family, the first drawn up in 1626 and the second in 1682. It is therefore certain that the work entered the Pincian collection through the marriage of Olimpia Aldobrandini the Younger and Paolo Borghese, where it was described by Giacomo Manilli in 1650. The “Keeper of the Villa” identified the sitter as “Philip III, King of Spain”, an identification that was soon disregarded by the compilers of later Borghese inventories. In these inventories, the subject is referred to more generically as a “young man” or a “prince” (Inv. 1765; Della Pergola 1959). Over time, the sitter has been variously interpreted as Charles V of Spain (Morelli 1890; Venturi 1893; Longhi 1928; De Rinaldis 1939; Baldass 1944; Della Pergola 1959; Collobi Ragghianti 1990; R. Gillon in Reyes y mecenas 1992; R. Besta in El Siglo de los Genoveses 1999; Herrmann Fiore 2006) or as Philip the Fair (Lafenestre & Richtenberger 1905; Van Puyvelde 1950; Herrmann Fiore 2009).

The authorship of the painting has also been the subject of much debate. It was initially attributed to Albrecht Dürer, Hans Holbein (see Morelli 1890), and Lucas van Leyden (Piancastelli 1891). However, all of these names were firmly dismissed by Adolfo Venturi (1893), who proposed Bernhard Strigel, a suggestion that was endorsed by Roberto Longhi in 1928 and, in the same year, by Aldo De Rinaldis. More recently, Letizia Arbeteta Mira (El arte, 2000) has revived this attribution. De Rinaldis has established a connection between the work and the Portrait of a Man currently held at the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte (inv. Q 14). De Rinaldis has identified this as a portrait of Charles V and attributed it to Bernard van Orley. It was indeed to van Orley that Ludwig von Baldass (1944) pointed, albeit describing the work as a studio production, followed by Paola Della Pergola (1959), who, building on the notion of a lost prototype from which several versions derived (Baldass 1944), listed a number of works closely related to the Borghese panel, including a painting in a Viennese private collection.

In 2009, Kristina Hermann Fiore revisited an earlier attribution to van Orley (2006) and argued in favour of Michael Sittow, the Estonian painter active at the courts of Isabella of Castile, Philip the Fair, and Margaret of Austria. Sittow was recognised in his time as one of the leading figures of the Netherlandish school. In fact, a tentative link to Sittow had already been proposed by Gillon in 1992, following the discovery, through X-ray imaging, of a nearly identical portrait beneath a painting by Sittow of Christian II of Denmark (Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst; Trizna 1976, p. 45; Sass 1976, pp. 1–14). Following this discovery, Herrmann Fiore proposed identifying the Borghese panel as an original by the Estonian master, albeit derived from an earlier prototype. From this same source, she suggests, descends yet another version: the Portrait of Charles V housed in the Cathedral of Saint-Sauveur in Bruges. Slightly larger than the Borghese painting, this version also bears a commemorative plaque celebrating the birth of Philip the Fair in Bruges (Devliegher 1979, p. 175), which would support both the sitter’s identification and the hypothesis of a common origin.

With regard to the dating, Herrmann Fiore (2011) proposed that the lost prototype was likely painted around 1496, the year of the marriage between Philip the Fair and Joanna the Mad, an event possibly symbolised by the downward-facing purple carnation. She accordingly dates the Borghese panel to around 1505-1506, during which time Sittow, in the service of the Habsburg sovereign, might have produced this second version, preserving the sitter’s youthful appearance in keeping with the conventions of dynastic portraiture, which often aimed to immortalise the sovereign in an idealised and eternally youthful form (Herrmann Fiore 2011).

While the subject remains open to intepretation, an alternative hypothesis of a more religious nature may be proposed regarding the meaning of the flower held by Philip. Rather than reffering to marriage, as Herrmann Fiore suggests through comparison with “betrothal portraits,” such as Portrait of a Young Man by Hans Memling (New York, Morgan Library & Museum, no. AZ073) or Portrait of Maximilian I by Joos van Cleve (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, inv. Gemäldegalerie 972), the carnation may symbolise the mystery of the Incarnation, an allusion reinforced by the Latin etymology of the word (caro, carnis). This would also explain the Virgin and Child medallion affixed to the sitter’s hat, invoking protection (O Mater Dei memento mei), as well as the violet colour of the carnation, traditionally associated with Christ’s Passion. According to legend, the flower is said to have sprung from a tear shed by the Virgin at Calvary, thus becoming a symbol of the Mother of God’s sorrow and, by extension, of her unwavering faith.

Antonio Iommelli