The Detroit Institute of Arts, Gift of Mrs. Ralph Harman Booth in memory of her husband Ralph Harman Booth Photograph © 2001 The Detroit Institute of Arts

View a copy of the Uffizi Gallery's state portrait, Eleanora of Toledo and Her Son (detail above), also by Bronzino.

The Renaissance and Baroque periods saw the development of the early modern nation-state through wars, imperialism and international marriage alliances. In this context the state portrait became a key instrument for communicating important ideas about female rulers and the sources of their power. The first state portrait to depict a mother with her son was Agnolo Bronzino's portrait of 1545, now in the Uffizi Gallery, showing Eleanora of Toledo, the wife of Cosimo I de' Medici of Florence. (On this portrait see Karla Langedijk, The Portraits of the Medici, 15th-18th Centuries, 3 vols., 1981; Gabrielle Langdon, Decorum in Portraits of Medici Women at the Court of Cosimo I, 1537-1574, 2 vols., diss., University of Michigan 1992.). In its homage to the mother-child bond as well as to the female ruler's role in assuring the continuation of the dynasty, it became an important model for later portraits of female rulers.

The Art Institute of Chicago, Restricted Gift of Dr. Maxwell Reed Mowry and Mr. and Mrs. George O. Klotter; and the Russell Tyson Fund.

View this medallion of Anne of Austria and Her Son, the Future King Louis XIV of France (detail above).

With male leadership the norm in both the public and private spheres, women of the Renaissance and Baroque periods derived power as a condition of their relationship to a powerful man--usually a husband, son or father. Within traditionally subordinate roles of wife or mother, individual women nevertheless found ways to project power and to present themselves as exemplars of socially sanctioned ideals of womanhood. Artistic depictions of a ruler's wife tended to stress her relationship to her husband and her contributions to the royal partnership and reminded the public of her primary purpose--to carry forward the dynasty by producing a male heir.

A widowed queen had to assert herself in order to assure the succession of her young son to the throne. While the tutelage of the royal heir was traditionally up to her, the queen often had to fight against noblemen and courtiers to preserve her right to be regent and thus to rule until her son came of age. Imagery could play an important role in spreading the idea that a woman monarch would be a marker of stability for a family, a people, and a nation. Through their patronage and displays of largesse, including offering works of art bearing their own likenesses to loyal supporters, these powerful women advertised the legitimacy of their rule and enhanced popular opinion about their fitness to lead. At the same time, the flourishing of printmaking gave artists a means of satisfying the public appetite for images of rulers and visual information about their qualities and attributes.