Margaret Theresa of Spain

Infanta Margarita Terésa of Spain in mourning dress (1666) by Juan Bautista Martínez del Mazo, Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain.

Margaret Theresa of Spain (Spanish: Margarita Terésa de España),(German: Margarita Theresa von Habsburg) (12 July, 1651, Madrid, Spain - 12 March, 1673, Vienna, Austria), Infanta of Spain and Empress of the Holy Roman Empire. She was the daughter of King Philip IV of Spain and his second wife Mariana of Austria. She was also the elder sister of Charles II the Bewitched, the last of the Spanish Habsburgs.

Early Life and Marriage

File:Infanta Española.jpg

Infanta Margarita Teresa of Spain (1656) by Diego Velázquez, Museum of Art History, Vienna, Austria.

Depsite the excessive history of inbreeding between the Austrian and Spanish Hapsburg family branches, Margarita exhibited little or none of the mental and physical defects inherited by her younger brother and other relations. She was the favorite child of her father, Philip IV, who referred to her as "my joy" in his private letters. For political reasons, Margarita Terésa was betrothed as a child to her maternal uncle, the Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold I. It was her father's will that she would always keep her rights to the Spanish throne and would transmit them to her descendants, something Leopold gladly accepted.

In the summer of 1666, the fifteen-year-old Spanish infanta left Madrid and traveled with several Spanish attendants to Austria, where she was solemnly welcomed by Leopold I. Their wedding took place in Vienna on 5 December 1666. Despite the difference in their ages and Leopold's unattractive appearance, the couple were very happy together since they shared a number of interests, especially theatre and music.

One of the most outstanding events during their reign was the splendid performance of the opera Il pomo d'oro ("The golden apple") by the Italian composer Marco Antonio Cesti in order to celebrate Margaret Theresa's seventeenth birthday in July 1668. This magnificent performance is frequently considered as the peak of the Baroque opera in Vienna during the seventeenth century.

Margaret Theresa died in childbirth at the age of twenty-two, leaving Leopold heartbroken.

Children

Margaret Theresa and Leopold were parents to four children:

• Ferdinand Wenzel (1667 - 1668), Archduke of Austria.
• Maria Antonia (1669 - 1692), Archduchess of Austria, who inherited her mother's claims to the Spanish throne and married Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria. They were the parents of Joseph Ferdinand of Bavaria, Prince of Asturias.
• Johann Leopold (1670), Archduke of Austria.
• Maria Anna (1672), Archduchess of Austria.

Depictions in art

Las Meninas (1656) by Diego Velázquez, Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain.

Margaret Theresa is the lovely blonde princess depicted in the Spanish painter Diego Velázquez' masterpiece Las Meninas ("The Maids of Honor", 1656), where she is surrounded by her ladies-in-waiting and other persons of the Spanish court.

There are other pictures of her, also painted by Velázquez at various stages of her childhood, where she is shown wearing magnificent Baroque dresses, which were typical of the court of Madrid during the Spanish Golden Age. These portraits were usually sent by King Philip IV to the court of Vienna in order to keep Leopold apprised of how young Margaret Theresa looked and how she was doing at the distant Spanish court.

It is possible that Maurice Ravel was thinking of her when he wrote Pavane pour une infante défunte. The Irish writer Oscar Wilde found inspiration in Las Meninas when he wrote his tale The Birthday of the Infanta.

• 
  Infanta Margarita Teresa in pink dress (1654) by Diego Velázquez, Museum of Art History, Vienna, Austria.
• 
  Infanta Margarita Teresa in blue dress (1659) by Diego Velázquez, Museum of Art History, Vienna, Austria.
• Infanta Margarita Teresa in pink dress (1660) by Diego Velázquez, Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain.
  Infanta Margarita Teresa in pink dress (1660) by Diego Velázquez, Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain.
• 
  Infanta Margarita Teresa (1664) by an unknown Spanish artist.

Bibliography

• ANDICS, Hellmut, Die Frauen der Habsburger (Vienna: Jugend und Volk, 1985).
• HAMANN, Brigitte, Die Habsburger: Ein Biografisches Lexicon (Munich: Piper, 1988).
• PFANDL, Ludwig, Karl II: das Ende der spanischen Machtstellung in Europa (Munich: Callwey, 1940).
• RUDOLF, Karl & OPLL, Ferdinand, Spanien und Osterreich (Vienna: Jugend und Volk, 1991).
• SMIDT-DÖRRENBERG, Irmgard, Margarita Maria, Infantin von Spanien, römisch-deutsche Kaiserin. Des Velazquez liebstes Modell (Vienna: Bergland-Verl., 1966).
• VILLA-URRUTIA, Wenceslao de, Relaciones entre España y Austria durante el reinado de la Emperatriz Doña Margarita, infanta de España, esposa del Emperador Leopoldo I (Madrid: Ricardo Fé, 1905).
• WIDORN, Helga, Die spanischen Gemahlinnen der Kaiser Maximilian II., Ferdinand III. und Leopold I. (Vienna: Diss., 1959).

External link

• Infanta Margarita Teresa in Blue Dress at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna