Maria Isabel of Portugal

Bernardo López Piquer
Spanish 1801–1874
Queen María Isabel de Braganza 1829
oil on canvas
254.0 x 172.0 cm
Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (P00863)

Lived: 19 May 1797 – 26 December 1818

Second wife and niece of Ferdinand VII.

Ferdinand VII waited ten years before marrying his niece and second wife Maria Isabel of Portugal. Maria Isabel was a great lover of art and it was she who encouraged her husband to use the building that is now the home of the Museo Nacional del Prado as a new Royal Museum of Paintings and Sculptures. It opened in 1819, the year after Maria Isabel died giving birth to her second child in two years, with neither infant surviving.