Portrait of Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand of Austria, on horseback (ca. 1640–53)
Original title: Portrait of Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand of Austria, on horseback
kurzbeschreibung
Paulus Pontius engraved this print sometime between 1640 and 1653. It presents Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand of Austria in full armour astride a horse, set within an idealised landscape. A ruler's portrait and allegorical motifs meet on the same sheet.
Description
The rider fixes his gaze straight on the viewer. He wears gleaming armour, a broad black hat and a long curled wig; his right hand holds a lance, his left another weapon. Above him hovers an angel with outspread wings. Trees and a river fill the distance behind him, and near the lower edge more horsemen gallop past. Latin inscriptions run along the bottom margin.
Context
Pontius, a Flemish engraver, worked closely with Peter Paul Rubens and reproduced his paintings. Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand (1609–1641) served as governor of the Spanish Netherlands and was a generous patron of the arts. He died in 1641, so the portrait was made after his death. It most likely served as a representative image for his court or as part of a series of rulers' portraits. This second state carries reworkings that point to a later edition.
Impact
Upright posture and sumptuous equipment project authority and military strength. The idealised landscape and the hovering angel give the image a solemn, almost exalted air, and the sitter's rank is pressed home emphatically.
Technique
This is an engraving: lines are cut into a copper plate, the plate is inked and then printed onto paper. Fine hatching and precise linework build up modelled shadows and detail of the kind typical of seventeenth-century printmaking. The sheet is the second of two known states, as documented in Hollstein.
AI-generated description text
Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)