Habsburg (or Hapsburg). One of the major ruling dynasties of European history, the members of which have included several important art patrons and collectors. The family can be traced back to the 10th century and it established a hereditary monarchy in Austria in the 13th century. From 1452 it held the title of Holy Roman Emperor almost continuously until the empire was dissolved by Napoleon in 1806. The family's territories reached their greatest extent in the early 16th century under Charles V, who—as a result of diplomacy, marriage, and conquest—ruled one of the largest empires ever created: in addition to its heartland in central Europe, it included Spain, the Kingdom of Naples and other parts of Italy, and most of the Netherlands, as well as vast colonial possessions in the Americas. When Charles abdicated in 1556 the empire was divided between his son Philip, who inherited Spain, the New World colonies, the Italian possessions, and the Netherlands, and his brother Ferdinand, who inherited the rest (the ‘Austrian’ territories), as well as the title of emperor. The Habsburgs ruled in Spain until 1700 and in Austria until 1918, when the upheavals of the First World War brought the dynasty to an end.
Maximilian I (1459–1519), who became emperor in 1493 and reigned until his death, was one of the most cultured rulers of his time (he was himself an accomplished writer) and the first of the great Habsburg patrons. He is sometimes known as the ‘Last Knight’, because in certain respects he represents a final flowering of the ways of the medieval world (he was, for example, his period's leading patron of armourers, and the graceful style of German armour characteristic of the time is known as Maximilian after him). In other ways, however, he was forward-looking, notably in his appreciation of the power of the printing press and the propaganda value of art. The most remarkable example of his use of visual propaganda was a huge woodcut triumphal arch, made up of more than a hundred blocks, celebrating his family's achievements; 700 copies were produced for distribution throughout the empire.
Dürer, the designer-in-chief, finished his work in 1515, but the cutting of the blocks took two more years, and the printing was not finished until 1518. Among the other artists who worked for Maximilian were
Hans Burgkmair the Elder and
Bernhard Strigel. They often had to wait a long time for payment, for Maximilian was constantly in financial trouble. His tomb (or more strictly monument, as he is buried elsewhere) in the Hofkirche, Innsbruck, was begun in 1508 as a vast dynastic memorial, but the design was much truncated by the time it was completed more than half a century later. Various artists worked on it, including
Peter Vischer the Elder.
Maximilian was succeeded by his grandson
Charles (1500–58), who ruled the empire as Charles V, 1519–56, and was also king of Spain as Charles I, 1516–56; he relinquished both titles two years before his death and retired to a life of religious devotion. By this time his unwieldy empire was becoming ungovernable, in the face of numerous problems, not least the spread of Protestantism. Charles had wide-ranging interests, and he collected maps, globes, and scientific instruments, as well as pictures, tapestries, books, arms and armour, coins, jewellery, and even featherwork from the Americas. His favourite painter was
Titian, who twice visited the imperial court at Augsburg, and the other artists he patronized included the sculptor
Leone Leoni and the architect
Pedro Machuca.
Charles's aunt,
Margaret of Austria (1480–1530), and his sister,
Mary of Hungary (1505–58), were successively regent of the Netherlands (1507–30 and 1530–56 respectively). Both of them were art lovers and each of them owned
Jan van Eyck's ‘
Arnolfini Marriage’ (1434, NG, London) for a time; Mary also owned another celebrated masterpiece of Early Netherlandish painting —
Rogier van der Weyden's Descent from the Cross (
c.1440, Prado, Madrid).
Bernard van Orley served as court painter to both of them. Charles's nephew,
Maximilian II (1527–76), who became emperor in 1564, was a devotee of the arts and learning and one of the main patrons of
Giuseppe Arcimboldo.
Arcimboldo also worked for Maximilian's son,
Rudolf II (1552–1612), who became emperor in 1576 and was the most remarkable of all Habsburg patrons and collectors; he was indeed one of the most impassioned art lovers in history. Politically his career was a disaster: he was subject to fits of morbid depression and spent long periods in semi-seclusion, making him incapable of governing effectively (in 1611 he was forced to abdicate as king of Bohemia in favour of his brother Mathias). However, his fervour for art and science turned his capital Prague into one of the leading cultural centres of Europe. His patronage attracted a roster of distinguished artists, scientists, and scholars to the city (including the astronomers Tycho Brahe and Johann Kepler) and his collection of pictures was one of the greatest ever assembled. The artists who worked for him in Prague included
Hans von Aachen,
Roelandt Savery,
Bartholomeus Spranger, and
Adriaen de Vries. He also commissioned work from some of the leading Italian masters of the day, including
Barocci,
Tintoretto, and
Veronese. Among earlier artists he particularly loved the work of
Bruegel and Dürer. In addition to paintings and sculptures, he collected applied art and curiosities of all kinds.
Rudolf's collections were dispersed after his death, but several of the paintings he owned are in the
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, which is the greatest monument to the artistic interests of the Habsburgs. The real father of its picture collection was
Archduke Leopold William (1614–62). He was governor of the Spanish Netherlands from 1646 to 1656 and during this period at the hub of the international art market he bought pictures on a grand scale, taking advantage of the political upheavals of the time (including the dispersal of the collection of Charles I of England after his execution in 1649). His court painter,
David Teniers the Younger, produced several pictures showing his remarkable collection. It was particularly rich in Italian (especially Venetian) pictures of the 16th century and in Flemish pictures of the 15th to the 17th century.
Among the later Habsburg patrons were
Maria Theresa (1717–80; Holy Roman Empress 1740–65), who bought numerous pictures, particularly by
Rubens, and patronized
Bellotto, and her son
Joseph II (1741–90; reigned from 1765), who opened the imperial collections to the public in 1781. Joseph was succeeded by his brother
Leopold II (1747–92). He reigned for only two years before his death, but earlier, as Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo, he had played an important role in the artistic life of Florence (see
Uffizi).
The Habsburg monarchs of Spain included two patrons and collectors who rank among the greatest in history,
Philip II (1527–98; reigned from 1556) and his grandson
Philip IV (1605–65; reigned from 1621). Philip II, the son of Charles V, lived an austere life in many ways—he was intensely religious and obsessively devoted to bureaucratic paperwork—but he also had a genuine passion for art. The greatest artistic memorial of his reign is the
Escorial, the huge monastery-palace near Madrid, begun in 1563. Philip imported many Italian artists to work on its decoration, and he also collected pictures on a scale that had not previously been seen in Spain. By the end of his life he owned about 1,500 and they were the basis of the Spanish royal collection that now forms the heart of the
Prado. His favourite living artist was Titian and he was the most important patron of his later career. Among earlier painters, he particularly admired
Bosch. In addition to paintings he also collected books and manuscripts, as well as sculpture, tapestries, arms and armour, antiquities, and other objects. At the beginning of his reign, Spain was at the height of its power and wealth, but he suffered various setbacks in his later years, including the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, and by the end of his life the country was in decline.
Under Philip IV this political decline accelerated, but his reign witnessed a glorious flowering of Spanish art. His favourite artist was
Velázquez, who produced numerous portraits of him and his family, and he employed many other eminent artists of this golden age, particularly on the decoration of royal buildings. In addition to the Escorial, these included the Buen Retiro palace, built in Madrid in the 1630s, and the Torre de la Parada, a hunting lodge near Madrid that Philip enlarged in 1635–7. Rubens and his collaborators produced more than a hundred paintings for the Torre de la Parada, and so much art was required to furnish the Buen Retiro that large numbers of pictures were commissioned from the Netherlands and Italy (
Claude was among the artists involved) as well as from Spanish painters, including
Mayno (who had taught Philip drawing when he was a child),
Pereda, and
Zurbarán. Philip also bought pictures by earlier artists, including works by some of the greatest Renaissance masters, notably
Raphael and Titian.
Philip was succeeded by his sickly son
Charles II (1661–1700; reigned from 1665), whose mental and physical infirmities reflected generations of Habsburg inbreeding. He inherited some of the family love of art, and his court painters included Carreño de Miranda,
Coello, and
Palomino. In 1692 he brought
Luca Giordano to Spain to work at the Escorial. By the time Charles died childless in 1700, Spain's power had declined so much that Louis XIV of France was able to install his grandson (Charles's great-nephew) as Philip V, bringing the Spanish Habsburg line to an end and provoking the War of the Spanish Succession.
