Slika:Portrait of Emperor Leopold I as a young man, wearing the Order of the Golden Fleece (by Benjamin Block).jpg

This portrait of the young monarch is rare as it depicts the emperor at a relatively young age, dressed in all the splendor of the robes of the Order of the Golden Fleece. The handling and treatment of the sumptuous fabrics and the lace recall other works by Block, among them the Portrait of Joseph I as a young boy Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum (oil on canvas, 126 x 105 cm, inv. no. GG_3409).

A dating to the years of the third marriage of the 35-year-old monarch seems plausible. Leopold married Eleonore of Pfalz-Neuburg in 1676. Prior to the engagement and subsequent marriage, portraits were exchanged. The present painting could well have been painted in this context. Indeed, in an anonymous portrait engraving, the empress is holding a medallion that resembles the present composition. Another anonymous portrait engraving of the emperor, but depicting him at a slightly more advanced age, appears also to be based on the present type (see Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Inv. no. 67014_01). It is therefore an interesting and significant addition to the artist’s oeuvre.

Block was born into an artist family in Lübeck. In 1655, through one of his brothers, he met prince Ferenc Nádasdy III who invited him to Hungary, where he is documented to have spent three years. From this period, the portraits of Nádasdy and his wife, as well as that of Pál Esterházy, have survived. In the mid-1650s he was commissioned to paint the Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher. In 1659 he is registered in Rome. After working as a portrait painter in Siena, Florence and Venice, Block returned in 1664 and settled in Nuremberg where he was knighted by Emperor Leopold in 1684.

Leopold was the fifth child of Emperor Ferdinand III and his first wife Maria of Spain. When he was younger, the prince stood in the shadow of his elder brother, Crown Prince Ferdinand. When Leopold was fourteen he became heir to the throne after the sudden death of his elder brother. Three years later, in 1657, his father died and he assumed the regency, aged just seventeen. His appointment as emperor of the Holy Roman Empire proved more difficult than expected. The traditional Habsburg claim to the emperorship was challenged by France, which was increasingly interfering in the politics of the Empire. Louis XIV, who was to become Leopold’s lifelong rival, had a growing influence over a part of the electors and was himself at times brought into play as a candidate. Considerable diplomatic efforts on the part of the Habsburg faction were needed before the election was decided in favour of Leopold. The coronation eventually took place in the summer of 1658.

The most urgent problem of Leopold’s early reign was the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, but in 1683 the Turkish army was defeated at the gates of Vienna. Although Leopold did not personally take part in the battle before the walls of Vienna in 1683, his reign profited from the ensuing offensive against the Ottoman Empire, which had been seriously weakened. Leopold’s reputation as a ruler benefited considerably from the successful campaign and the expansion of the Monarchy following the military successes is regarded as the key event of his reign. This period in history was solemnly stylised in the patriotic historiography of the nineteenth century as Austria’s ‘heroic age’. The wholly un-warlike Leopold is today still referred to in common parlance as ‘Türkenpoldl’ (extracted from Dorotheum).