{"id":412,"date":"2014-04-16T10:56:58","date_gmt":"2014-04-16T10:56:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tim-dawson.com\/?p=412"},"modified":"2018-09-10T07:53:16","modified_gmt":"2018-09-10T07:53:16","slug":"family-planning-the-children-who-did-not-suceed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tim-dawson.com\/?p=412","title":{"rendered":"Family planning: the children who did not suceed"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Diego<\/a>
Diego Vel\u00e1zquez: Philip IV of Spain 1632<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Diego<\/a>
Diego Vel\u00e1zquez: Infanta Maria Teresa 1652\/3<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Diego<\/a>
Diego Vel\u00e1zquez: Margaret Teresa at 5 1656<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Diego<\/a>
Diego Vel\u00e1zquez (workshop): Margaret Teresa at 9 1664<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Diego<\/a>
Diego Vel\u00e1zquez: Infante Balthazar Charles 1640<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Diego<\/a>
Diego Vel\u00e1zquez: Philip Prosper 1659<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One was promised as a child to significantly older uncle; she was dead by the age of 21.\u00a0 Another endured an arranged marriage to a womanising monster, whose mistresses lived in the family home.\u00a0 She died in pain in her forties.\u00a0 And the poor little boy, on whose shoulders the hopes of his family rested, met the grim reaper before his first teacher.\u00a0 Systematic inbreeding over several generations blighted the entire family.<\/p>\n

The running order for a day-time tabloid tv show? \u00a0You might think so.\u00a0 But this is not proletarian grotesques goaded into violence for viewers\u2019 titillation \u2013 it is possibly the most poignant collection in any major art museum.\u00a0 The incipient conflict that these faces presage would engulf Europe in bloody war for nine years.<\/p>\n

Welcome to the Vel\u00e1squez collection in Vienna\u2019s\u00a0 Kuntsthistorisches Museum<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Diego Vel\u00e1zquez (1599 \u2013 1660) was image-maker in chief in the court of King Phillip IV of Spain.\u00a0 Widely considered among Europe\u2019s most brilliant artists, his is referenced by major painters to this day.\u00a0 His patron Phillip\u2019s empire, meanwhile, spanned the world and included much of Italy, the Netherlands and the \u2018new world\u2019.\u00a0 His reign, however, marked the end of Spain\u2019s \u2018golden age\u2019 as the world\u2019 pre-eminent power \u2013 not least because of problems with his heir.<\/p>\n

Velazquez\u2019 family portraits of the Hapsburg monarch\u2019s children served far more purpose than brightening the palace walls.\u00a0 They were integral to Philip\u2019s plan for both succession and, through beneficial marriage, to shoring up his waning imperium.<\/p>\n

Maria Theresa (1660 \u2013 1683) Phillip\u2019s first daughter was destined to be a political pawn from birth.\u00a0 This portrait, commissioned when she was 15, was touted around Europe\u2019s royal families in the hope that her likeness would catch an eye.<\/p>\n

In this case, her father\u2019s geopolitical luck was in inverse proportion to Maria Theresa’s marital good fortune. \u00a0Louis XIV of France liked her smile and offered his hand. \u00a0Louis – the Sun King – has a fair claim to be the world\u2019s greatest monarch \u2013 a founder of the centralised https:\/\/www.gatewayanalytical.com\/generic-cipro\/<\/a> proto-modern state, palace builder, and warrior. \u00a0His performance as a royal husband, however, is eclipsed only by England\u2019s Henry VIII.\u00a0 The pious Maria Theresa bored Louis within a year of matrimony, so he installed a succession of lovers at Versailles, some of whom even acted as his public consorts.<\/p>\n

Her sister Margaret Theresa\u2019s fate (1651 \u2013 1673) was more tragic still.\u00a0 As a child she was betrothed to her uncle, Leopold I, the Holy Roman Emperor, 26 years her senior.\u00a0\u00a0 The series of paintings of her that were completed\u00a0 when she was three, five and eight were sent to uncle Leo in Vienna, so that he might eye up his\u00a0 bride as she matured.\u00a0\u00a0 Around the time that the middle portrait was completed, Vel\u00e1squez also painted Las Meninas<\/a>.\u00a0 This large group portrait is among the most discussed paintings in western art.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s immortality of a sort \u2013 but scant compensation for what marriage brought her.\u00a0 By the age of 21 she had four children and many miscarriages.\u00a0 Weakened beyond endurance, she did not make it beyond adulthood\u2019s threshold.<\/p>\n

Her brother, Balthasar Charles (1629 \u2013 1646) \u2013 depicted here when he was thirteen – perished from smallpox before he was an adult.<\/p>\n

Philip Prosporo (1657 \u2013 1661) was Philip\u2019s first son from his second marriage to survive infancy.\u00a0 Great joy greeted his birth as it was hoped that a male successor would end the vicious dynastic quarrels that threatened Hapsburg pre-eminence.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It was daring of Vel\u00e1squez to fearlessly depict his fragility.\u00a0 He had to paint quickly, though, the boy was dead before he was four.<\/p>\n

Glittering as was Philip\u2019s court and extraordinary as are these paintings (their depth and luminosity are several scales of magnitude beyond that suggested by my photographs), the Spanish Empire was fatally weak.\u00a0 Within 40 years of Philip\u2019s death, Europe\u2019s new powers were at each other\u2019s throats in the War Of The Spanish Succession, an unholy quarrel over who should take over control of his disparate territories.<\/p>\n

Perhaps, on balance, bequeathing the world a remarkable collection of great art is a more enduring and noble achievement than leaving behind a great empire.\u00a0 It is hard, however, not to shed a tear for the children who, through no fault of their own, so catastrophically failed to live up to their father\u2019s expectations.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One was promised as a child to significantly older uncle; she was dead by the age of 21.\u00a0 Another endured an arranged marriage to a womanising monster, whose mistresses lived in the family home.\u00a0 She died in pain in her …<\/p>\n

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