ABSTRACT
In Justus Sustermans’s portrait of Maria Maddalena d’Austria and Ferdinando II, dated February 1623, the grand duchess wears a black gown suggestive of widowhood (her husband had died two years previously), but its blackness is enlivened with small pearls and its open sleeves reveal ivory satin embroidered with gold thread (Plate 4). She wears a delicate ruff and cuffs, and around her neck are three strings of pearls, one of which is secured to her breast with a small red bow.1 Maria Maddalena’s pose emulates that of her mother-in-law, Cristina di Lorena, in the 1590 portrait by Scipione Pulzone (see Plate 2). As in the earlier image, the subject’s right hand rests on a table, next to the grand ducal crown of Tuscany. Her left hand is lightly placed on the shoulder of her young son, now grand duke. On the death of Cosimo II in March 1621, Maria Maddalena and Cristina were named as regents for Ferdinando II during his minority. The portrait makes Maria Maddalena’s role clear: she is the conduit between grand ducal power and the grand duke himself. She is a resolute, stable and protective figure, who looks at the viewer assertively.
