Sofonisba Anguissola arrived in Spain in 1559 to serve as a lady-in-waiting to Philip II’s third wife, Elizabeth of Valois (1546-1568). A renowned painter in her native Cremona, she held no official post related to her profession at the Spanish court, but we know that she made numerous portraits of the Royal Family. Those works reveal her understanding of Spanish court portraiture, but they also contain nuances that are clearly her own: soft modeling, diffused light and small, subtle brushstrokes that she blurs by delicately rubbing them. This portrait of Philip II is one of Sofonisba’s most elaborate images. She painted it in 1565, when he was married to Valois, then retouched it in 1573 so that it would work as a pair with one of his fourth wife, Anne of Austria (P1284). An X-ray of this canvas shows that the king originally wore a voluminous short cape of the sort known as bohemio and held his right hand over his chest, pointing to the Order of the Golden Fleece. The posterior changes did not affect the king’s head, as he was undoubtedly satisfied by the youth and serene distance with which he had been depicted in 1565. But Anguissola replaced his cape with a lighter one of black silk, which makes the figure more graceful. She also moved his right hand to the arm of the friar’s chair, a simple but elegant gesture with implications that would have been clear to viewers of that time, as it immediately evoked auctoritas regia (regal authority), a perception reinforced by the sword hanging from his waist. Anguissola’s portrait fit well with the image of himself that Philip II sought to project. Eschewing his father’s military image, the monarch appears as an elegant and distant courtier, the kingdom’s top functionary, distinguished only by his bearing and the essential Order of the Golden Fleece that stands out against his black frock coat. The most original touch is undoubtedly the rosary in his left hand. The year 1573 was precisely when Pope Gregory XIII established the Feast of the Rosary to commemorate the Christian victory at Lepanto (on October 7, 1571), in order to insure the triumph of the Catholic faith (Text drawn from Ruiz, L.: El arte del Poder. La Real Armería y el retrato de corte, Museo Nacional del Prado, 2010, p. 176).