“Portrait of Mary of Hungary”, Germany, 16^th century

Mary, Queen of Hungary and Governor of the Netherlands, was the sister of Emperor Charles V and a key figure on the political scene in the sixteenth century, especially in the Netherlands. Her influence extended beyond the political sphere, however; at her court in Brussels, she was also a patron of the arts and had a great impact on artistic production. Her tastes and commissions boosted the spread of the Italian Renaissance aesthetic in the Netherlands in the first half of the sixteenth century.