Philip II holding a Rosary

During the first half of the sixteenth century, Spain acquired a vast empire of distant colonies, but by the end of the century, this expansion had ceased. During the years that saw the containment of the Empire, Spain was governed by Philip II (1556-1598), the son of Emperor Charles V. When he came to the throne at the age of 29, he ruled over all the Spanish colonial territories, the Netherlands and a large area of Southern Italy. For a short period, he was also a force to be reckoned with in England. He lived to see the Union of Utrecht - which marked the secession of the northern provinces - and the destruction of the Armada off the shores of England. He did not, however, live to see the successes in Central Europe of the Counter-Reformation, for which he was partly responsible. He was an unhappy man who bequeathed to his successors a financially depleted country - and a fabulous palace: the Escorial.

During the reign of Philip II, Spanish Society was hierarchical, insular and élitist. Its code of honour was based on the purity of faith and blood and legitimate birth manifested in the practice of virtue. Philip II introduced a fashion for shorter hair, beards and sober, particularly black dress.

Considering that Anguissola was a court painter, her portrait of Philip was not very flattering. She tried to combine truth with a show of respect, expressing the personality of the monarch by painting the thick lips, the cold blue eyes, the hand fingering the rosary, the ruff and the order of the Golden Fleece.

Formerly, the painting was attributed to Anguissola's rival court painter, Alonso Sánchez Coello. A variant of the portrait by Sánchez Coello is in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.